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Starting a local newspaperKat Kanning will share with us how to start a local newspaper. Her experience with the Keene Free Press may help you start your own local paper. I'm sure she could use your help distributing the paper in your area. Contact Kat at Kat@AltExpo.org Starting a Pro-Liberty Newspaper This is possible, and can even be a money making venture. When the idea was first brought to me, it was something I had never considered doing. But it makes so much sense! My husband Russell and I are reaching out to people in our county...rooting out the people interested in liberty. So many people contact us and say, "I thought I was alone in thinking this way...now I know I'm not." It's become an outlet for people who've been oppressed by government. So to help others who might want to try this, I'll go through what we did to get The Keene Free Press going. 1. Locating a printer: we searched our town and the internet to find the cheapest place to print on newsprint. The local paper didn't want to print it because we'd be competition. Plus, they'd hate what we had to say in the paper. Most print shops won't print on newsprint. They don't run printing presses like the newspapers do. We chose a printer out of state that was very reasonable in price. Even with the shipping, it was cheaper than printing locally. Plus, it's harder for local government to shut us down. 2. Financing: local car dealers and real estate agencies are good bets for starting to find advertising. We've found so far that there'll be people in town crazy to have a non-government controlled newspaper and will always advertise with you. Our goal is to have the newspaper be half content, half ads. A local magazine editor warned me that if your content is controversial (which it must be to be pro-liberty) that it will be difficult to get advertisers. This is probably true. The man who brought the idea to us didn't seem to have a problem getting ads. We started out charging $3.00/square inch of advertising space, but switched to a voluntary pricing system - pay what you want. 3. Format: We chose a tabloid style, folded, 11x14 on newsprint, black ink only. Keene is a town of about 13,000 people and we print 5,000 copies. Cost runs about $400/issue for this, which includes shipping. 4. Distribution: Russell and I put it out (free) in grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations, barber shops, college student unions, cafes, friendly businesses. He also hands some out door to door, placing them under the edge of welcome mats or in newspaper boxes. 5. Layout: I do all the layout in MS Word. There's probably a better program for this, but Word works. Graphics should be at least 200 pixels/inch. I use tiff format for graphics. JPGs don't turn out well..they're compressed for the internet. 6. Content: Lots of people from the libertarian/anarchist community seem to want to have their ideas printed. We're doing mostly a 'viewspaper' as in printing editorial type articles. A few have been more like news. So far, only a few people from the community have submitted articles. We're hoping that grows as more people find out about the paper. So if you want to write something for us... 7. Staff: it's just my husband and I, with the unofficial help of a few friends. It can be done with two people, but a third doing advertising would help. Write to me if you're interested and have any questions! You can check out the paper at: Kat Kanning |
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