News Guest

Getting an independent local news business off the ground is no small feat, and figuring out how to keep it going can be even harder. So we asked publishers: What do you wish you'd known about launching a news business before you started?

In this episode of News Guest, we talk with two LION members about their perspectives on that question and the lessons they’ve learned the hard way:

• To build a sustainable news business, set a sustainable workload: Santa Cruz Local founder Kara Meyberg Guzman explains how she found herself working 80 hours a week as a news founder – and how she and her team made a plan to fix that.
• Beware the plug-ins: Gettysburg Connection founder Chuck Stangor talks about building a website on WordPress and learning how to manage all the plug-ins that have become part of his “tech stack.”

Related resources:

• Sign up for the News Founder Challenge, a six-week newsletter course that will help you test and refine your news business idea. 
• Read the GNI Startups Playbook, a step-by-step guide to building and launching a news business. 
• RSVP for LION's News Founder Meetup (March 16, 2022) to meet other aspiring and early-stage news founders and ask Kara your questions about launching a business.

Research shows that solutions journalism can combat news fatigue, build trust with readers, and deliver more impact than reporting focused on problems alone. But can solutions journalism move the needle on revenue?

In this episode of News Guest, you’ll hear two perspectives on that question – first, from Flint Beat founder Jiquanda Johnson in an interview with our host Candice Fortman, and then from Alec Saelens, who’s the Newsroom Revenue Manager at the Solutions Journalism Network.

Related Resources:

• Read the Solutions Journalism Network's Revenue Playbook.
• If you're a LION member, sign up for a one-hour workshop with SJN’s Alec Saelens to learn about practical steps you can take to attract sponsorships, grants, reader revenue and other funding to support your solutions journalism and strengthen your business.

Our hypothesis at LION is that the path to sustainability for independent news businesses starts with a strong foundation of operational resilience, financial health, and journalistic impact. But what do these three pillars look like in practice?

In our latest episode of News Guest, we explore seven ideas to improve news business sustainability that were first shared at the 2021 LION Local Journalism Awards, including ideas for organizing your team, engaging your audience, and streamlining your workflows.

Related reading:

• Watch all seven "lightning talk" presentations from the LION Local Journalism Awards
• Hear Broadstreet Ads founder Kenny Katzgrau explain five key advantages that local publishers have for selling digital advertising

This episode is sponsored by Broadstreet Ads, in recognition of LION’s Local Journalism Awards and the continued dedication and excellence of LION members across North America.

Fall means peak fundraising season for many news organizations — and our three guests today are full of advice about how to build relationships with potential funders, especially those without a long history of supporting journalism.

Kimberly Griffin is the publisher and director of revenue for Mississippi Free Press; Kimberly Spencer is the senior director of development and donor relations at Chalkbeat, which reports on education across America; and Robert Chappell is the associate publisher for Madison365, a local news site that serves communities of color in Madison, Wisconsin.

Bonus for LION members: Join us on Tuesday, November 30 for a LION Lesson that will help you build or refine an end-of-year fundraising campaign. If you’re starting from scratch, we’ll give you advice on how to develop a lightweight membership or donation campaign that you can launch before the holidays. If you’re already deep in the weeds, we’ll help you get peer feedback on your campaign messaging or tactics.

RSVP here for the LION Lesson, and let us know in the registration form what support you’re looking for so that we can cater the breakout groups to your needs.

Related Reading:

• What 16 publishers learned pitching funders on journalism projects (Local Media Association)
• Crafting a winning pitch to attract funding (IJNet)
• 3 ways the nonprofit newsroom PublicSource is becoming more sustainable (LION Publishers)

Scalawag has learned that in-person and virtual events can be a powerful “top of funnel” marketing tool for membership by helping introduce its brand to the kind of progressive, diverse, engaged Southerners who are most likely to become paying supporters.

In this episode, Scalawag executive director Cierra Hinton and audience growth and engagement manager Sarah Glen share what they’ve learned about hosting great events as community-building and revenue-growth strategies that will pave the way for their next phase of growth.

Related reading:

• How Scalawag made the growth case for events (Membership Puzzle Project)
• Here's how the subscriber funnel, or whatever you want to call it, works (Poynter)
• Journalism needs to connect the dots between audience engagement and making money. The key might be the concept of a marketing funnel (GroundSource)
• Want to make your journalism more memberful? Find a range of proven practices, including revenue-generating routines (Membership Puzzle Project)
• Why the South needs movement journalism (Scalawag)

Reader revenue often gets talked up as the future of local news, but what about the people who can’t afford to pay? In this episode of News Guest, Candice talks with El Tímpano founder Madeleine Bair about meeting information needs in low-income communities — and how her nonprofit newsroom unlocked a new revenue stream by doing exactly that.

The 19th* is celebrating its first birthday this month, and there’s a lot to celebrate, from a $12 million fundraising haul to its nearly 11,000 paying members. 

But co-founder and publisher Amanda Zamora says the high-flying independent news startup has also made a few mistakes along the way, especially when it comes to planning for and managing growth.

In this episode of News Guest, our host Candice Fortman talks with Amanda about the idea behind The 19th* and the challenge of launching it during a pandemic, as well as what she'd do differently if she could start again.

An all-volunteer passion project grows into a full-fledged news operation, with staff to manage, contractors to pay, and a business to run.

Gabe Schneider and The Objective team have spent the last 12 months charging full speed ahead at this transition, but now they’re about to try something different: slowing down.

In this episode of News Guest, our host Candice Fortman talks with Gabe and his colleague Janelle Salanga about why they’ve decided to take a break from publishing at The Objective this summer, and how they plan to use this pause to set themselves up for success.

Last summer, Luke Baumgarten was one of 24 aspiring news entrepreneurs selected to participate in the inaugural Startups Boot Camp, a partnership between LION and the Google News Initiative. Today, he’s the publisher of RANGE, a solutions-focused local news organization with nearly 1,000 newsletter readers and 100 paying members.

In this episode of News Guest, Outlier Media executive director Candice Fortman talks with Luke about his first six months as an independent news founder, plus the creative growth tactics he used to build his audience from scratch.

Many news organizations across the country have *talked* about diversifying their teams and prioritizing equity and inclusion, especially in the wake of last year's Black Lives Matter protests.

The Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service has actually done it. Nearly 70 percent of MNNS's paid staff identify as people of color, including its top editor Ron Smith — and it's not by accident.

In this episode of News Guest, our host Candice Fortman talks with Ron about the approaches to recruitment, hiring, and training that have helped Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service build one of the most racially diverse news teams in the country, and what the rest of us can learn from it.