[MGP-Forum Announce] Is it better to build, not buy, metro news organization?

[kpaul mallasch]

Hrm. Some might find it odd to see this coming off my keyboard, but I don't
see anything inherently wrong with profit. (It's the greed all over that
gets to me...)

In any case, I'm running Muncie Free Press (kpaul media) as a sole
propretorship (?) at the moment, with plans of forming an LLC in the near
future.

I do agree that there's a big possibility that some of the independents will
'sell out' to big media, but there's a way around that. Spread the power
around. I'm helping a handful of people at the moment with their own CitJ
type sites. (One of the more successful one still balks when I call him a
publisher.)  The more of us there are, the less chance there is they can buy
out the entire revolution.

I threw together Indiana Free Press (http://www.indianafreepress.com) over
the weekend as a kind of experiment to see how many small independents I can
get working together in a loose (grassroots) confederacy of sorts. I'm
hoping we all can keep each other in check and also give us a fighting
chance against Golianett et al.

I'm going on my 16th month and see nothing but growth ahead. It's an
exciting time.

Another semi-related idea I've had is to set up some sort of foundation once
kpaul media 'makes it' and has money to spare. The idea would be to seed
various efforts across the country. This would help speed things up a
little, I think. It's hard to grow really fast when you're spending less
than $100/month on advertising. There's a lot of great sites out there,
though.

Anyway, I don't think being a 'non-profit' will solve the problem. We need
people with enthusiasm, with passion, from all quarters. (Yes, I realize
even I will need some real 'suits' working for me eventually ;)

Giving a lot of power back to the people is important too. (More on this
later perhaps, as I have a few things brewing on the back burner concerning
good ways to do this...)

K. Paul Mallasch - New Media Publisher
http://www.kpaulmedia.com

On 10/27/06, steve at coanews.org <steve at coanews.org> wrote:
>
> I think building new community news organizations is usually the way
> to go, but it
> depends on the situation.  But I think it is important that they be
> non-profit
> incorporated, as we have seen what has happened to for-profit
> alternative daily
> newspapers - they have been bought up by one corporation, and in many
> cases that
> corporation has removed the unprofitable local content that was once
> available.
>
> Being non-profit also means that one person or group of people won't
> be creating a
> community website in order to create a golden egg for later in life =
> selling out when
> the time is right.
>
> Sustainable long term community media should be non-profit and
> independent.
>
> -I do still respect community media projects that are for-profit (I
> think coastsider.com
> falls in this category), but I do not think it is the long term
> solution to our
> privatized media system.
>
> Just my two cents,
> Steve
>
> Quoting Bill Densmore <densmore at densmoreassociates.com>:
>
> >
> > Doing some catching up, we just came across MGP2006 alum Barry
> > Parr's Oct. 12, 2006, blog posting about the future of the Los
> > Angeles times. Parr, the Jupiter Research analyst who also is a
> > pioneer local online news community operator with Coastsider.com,
> > suggests it is now better to build, not buy, a metropolitan news
> > organization. Is he right?
> >
> > See:
> >
> http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/parr/archives/2006/10/dismantling_the.html
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
>
>
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-- 
-- 
Best,
K. Paul Mallasch - Publisher
http://www.kpaulmedia.com
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