What I have learned so far about the business of journalism:

What I have learned so far about the business of journalism:

Newspapers get more money from advertising than from sales of the newspapers.
The news industry has a relatively high profit margin, such as 20 percent, 30 percent or more.

What I learned from:
Online Newspaper Revenue: Puny AND Persuasive (to broadcasters)?
By Gordon Borrell

Aesthetics are important to draw consumers.
The fact is, some sites run by daily newspapers are doing phenomenally well compared with their peers. It is typical to see some newspaper sites making three to four times the average for their peer circulation group. Yet there are others that are trying hard (even a few that have won awards for spectacular site features) but performing poorly on the revenue side.
This inward look at how well the newspaper industry is doing is a step toward an important benchmarking process. It shows newspapers how well they compare against their peers. But as my colleague Clark Gilbert from Harvard Business School says, the best newspapers are just the prettiest of the ugly stepsisters.
Must have money that is consumable and subject matter must not be too serious:

I have a theory for this. All the competitor sites mentioned are pure-play Internet companies that a) have complete dependence on Internet revenues and b) are not dependent on financing, resources or demands of a parent company focused on a competing medium.

Online commerce generates a majority of Profits.

I have a theory for this. All the competitor sites mentioned are pure-play Internet companies that a) have complete dependence on Internet revenues and b) are not dependent on financing, resources or demands of a parent company focused on a competing medium.


Will we use advertisements?
Advertisements are a must. We need to be able to generate a cost basis as a way to spread ourselves throughout the state to be able to cover as much as we can. I feel that the best case scenario would be using local businesses as a generator of economy as well as using them to help spread our word via weekly pamphlets or placemat depending upon the market and venue.
- local restaurants
- local Laundromats
- local grocery
- local schools targeting school board meetings, PTA, and Gridiron clubs
- local artisans and galleries
- vintage shops
- florists
- private book stores
- doctors office
- lawyers
- etc.

Will there be a print campaign?
Limited run of printed copy that has our web address printed all over it that helps spread our word through a grass root campaign.


Will we link up with other local sites for promotion and repay the favor?
I think we make our presence known via major news events around the state placing our product name in very visual places to help piggyback on visual media, such as TV, Podcasts etc. Try to forge relationships by appearing on local radio shows when ever we can to help generate positive public relations. We can trade drive time for ad space in order to further our relationships.
- local radio (FM)
- local radio (AM)
- local TV

How will we get our name out there, and the methods we use, what will that say about us?
We can have weekly writing contests within high schools where the winners article can be a weekly feature on the front home page of the website. This has two purposes: help start a young audience base that will grow as our site does and get interest in journalism boosted throughout the state by teachers, parents and school administrators that will help drive interest in our site. The contests ideas can be placed on the website with new concepts or topics each week that will bring different students trying out their hand at hyperlocal journalism.