Want to own a local newspaper in Alaska? Here's your chance...
December 15, 2019 6:59 AM   Subscribe

 
Link to the paper's website.

I've spent quite a few years in the newspaper biz, and I'd question the claim that the owner could make $50,000 a year (understanding that's the publishers salary, not profit). That's nearly $100 per subscriber, which is a lot these days even at a much larger paper. On the other hand, the publisher should be able to "monetize" the one million annual tourists who drop by on cruise ships, with specialty publications.
posted by beagle at 7:44 AM on December 15, 2019 [4 favorites]


Per the article it's half subscription, half monetizing the visitors, which still sounds a little thin on plausibility for a paper that only prints 23 times a year. But I'm just impressed by the thought that it does actually sound like you could actually make a living on this.
posted by wotsac at 7:59 AM on December 15, 2019 [2 favorites]


"He THINKS...it would be FUN...to run a NEWSPAPER!!!"
posted by bartleby at 11:40 AM on December 15, 2019 [4 favorites]


I'm guessing that the $50k margin is all coming from the Skagway Alaskan, but revenue might be 50/50? The newspaper itself must be losing money, but the publisher can make it up on the tourist side. I think the challenge would be finding somebody who will wake up early to aggressively monetize cruise ship passengers AND has an interest in small-town journalism.
posted by The Ted at 11:43 AM on December 15, 2019


I sent the link to my partner and got back a one-word reply. “No.” Dammit.
posted by jzb at 1:55 PM on December 15, 2019 [7 favorites]


Dammit

You could try the “beg forgiveness rather than Alaska permission” gambit....
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:37 PM on December 15, 2019 [2 favorites]


If you prefer your tiny towns more prairie Canada than coastal Alaska, you could try for the Davidson Leader instead.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:18 PM on December 15, 2019


Thank your partner, jzb.

This brings up soooo many memories. I was never an owner, but for two years in the late 70;s straight out of j-school, I reported for a small town paper, a weekly in a wheat-farming county with three times the population of Skagway.

When I started the paper supported a full time staff of four: me, the owner-editor, the office manager, and the advertising manager. We also employed a part time typesetter, a part time production assistant, and a part time community reporter/ad salesperson. Over two years I became intimately acquainted with the school superintendent and principals, the hospital administrator, all the members of the police and sheriff's department, most of the local business owners, ministers of all the churches, county and city government officials and employees, and a lot of the wheat farmers in the area.

One farmer's family I became very close to because the wife was the part time community reporter/ad salesperson I mentioned above. I got to watch her family fall apart because she had an affair with the advertising manager. As with the DUI driver in the linked article, a lot of things that happen in a small community that most everyone knows about, and can hurt people. A small town journalist has to be sensitive.

I loved that little town and the people I got to know there, but my two years on the paper taught me I didn't want to be a journalist. So I would stay far, far away from an opportunity like this.
posted by lhauser at 8:03 PM on December 15, 2019 [6 favorites]


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