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Local news shows signs of life after a decade of decline

After a disastrous decade, local newspapers are showing signs of life.

Background: In my own personal career, I've had a front-row seat watching Canada's largest regional news publisher being decimated. In Canada and several other countries, many communities have lost their local rag — eliminating the best source of consolidated and curated information about municipal government activity and community events.

The opportunity: In contrast, there may have never been a better time to be in local news. Europe, Australia, and Canada are all making legislative efforts to address their news media industries' revenue imbalances. Hyper-local news organizations are also shifting their media strategy to focus on newsletters via e-mail distribution, with membership revenues supported by take-overs, sponsorships, and events.

Media Boycott: On Thursday, Feb 4, most Canadian national and regional newspapers published blank front pages intended to focus more attention on the issue.

Imagine if the news wasn’t there when we needed it. If nothing is done, the journalism industry will disappear.

Is the pressure campaign working?: Yup. Google may have blinked first. On Friday, Feb 5, Google announced that they were launching a platform in Australia featuring content they had paid for, looking to circumvent the Canberra legislation before it's passed.

Other regions are watching the Australian developments closely, presaging a new fight to regain enough revenue retention to support these cultural touchstones.


I find the signal in the noise from the latest startup podcasts so you don't have to. Follow along here:


Synopsis: New forms of local and community news such as email newsletters, podcasts, and mobile apps are developing. In IH podcast episode# 189 Chris Sopher (@cksopher) and Bruce Pinchbeck (@BrucePinchbeck) of WhereBy.us outlined their formula for success.

The strategy: Following the successful launch of their first city newsletter in Miami, they launched four more regional newsletters (Seattle, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Portland). Today WhereBy.Us is generating over $1.5MM ARR, through a wide variety of sources such as memberships, advertising, sponsorships, and events.

Advertising Formula: As a fundamental part of their monetization strategy, the WhereBy.Us founders focus on knowing their audience intimately.

  • WhereBy.Us targets the community members they define as "Curious Locals".

Curious locals want to explore the city, feel local pride, and have meaningful engagements within their community. They may read and share local content or events, but they may be more passive information seekers, relying more on their networks to help them discover and understand these opportunities.

The content is designed for various personas,  each requiring slightly different voices and information.

  • These personas include Architects, Voyagers, Regulars, and Passengers.

Back to the Future: Early newspapers were short and pithy (2-4 pages), and were labors of love by their editors, driven by their passion for the benefit of the local community. These pioneering news publishers often formed symbiotic business relationships with local printers, securing their means of production and distribution.

  • The WhereBy.Us model emulates that history, offering infrastructure, support, and a knowledgebase to accelerate each city publisher to sustainability.

With the city newsletters running successfully, WhereBy.Us turned its attention to the toolset.

Recent success: In mid-2020, WhereBy.Us launched LetterHead, described by TechCrunch as "the Shopify of Newsletters".

  • In less than seven months of operation, Letterhead is already pulling in more than $ 25K MRR.

Bottom line: Letterhead is well suited for managing the business aspects of running e-mail newsletters.

  • Specific functionalities include tools to manage the ad system, a paid subscription feature enabling paywalled subsections, easy-to-use text editing and template formatting, and analytics.

  • Letterhead throws back to the days where content generation was the primary focus of the publisher or editor, without the infrastructure and business management burden.

In the news: Other recent announcements in the space include Hubspot's acquisition of The Hustle, and Twitter's acquisition of Revue. In September 2020, Axios reflected on a growing trend among high-profile journalists who decide to "go-it-alone".

Hypothesis: The community-based newsletter market is in its infancy. A hyper-local email newsletter is curated and targeted for a geography-based community. Similar opportunities exist for communities of interest, both on- and off-line.

Synthesis: As the creator economy continues to expand, Letterhead is an appealing no-code option for committed info-product entrepreneurs with a message and a mission. And if Google and Facebook reverse the gravity of their "black-hole" approach to advertising revenue, the community-focused news market is wide open.

  1. 2

    Completely agree. The future of online news will be a few hubs (NYT, WashPost, Guardian, etc) and then thousands of local and hyper local outlets.

    1. 2

      YES! and hopefully, a little of the "spirit and soul" of each community will slide back in.

  2. 1

    Journalism is mostly already dead. Replaced by activism.

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