A local effort to save the La Conner Weekly News may need a holiday miracle.
A community group formed in September to save the paper raised around $30,000 so far. But that’s not enough to buy it from owner Ken Stern, who has been trying to get $250,000.
Stern is planning to publish the last edition next week but may give the group a few more months to raise money before he completely shuts it down. The group hopes to buy and sustain the paper.
The paper reported Dec. 4 that it will cease publication on Dec. 18 “unless an angel investor comes forward in the next two weeks.”
“It’s a sad day for La Conner,” La Conner Mayor Marna Hanneman told the weekly. “It takes a village and when something important in the village goes, it leaves a big hole.”
Stern declined to say much to me about the details. But he’s apparently willing to give the community group until March to organize a buyout, according to Ellen Hiatt, executive director of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association.
“There’s a lot of heart in the community around this newspaper and Ken has a lot of heart for it but he’s ready to retire and the timing has just not come together in a way that has met his deadline,” Hiatt said. “That said, he’s considering staying on a little longer.”
Hiatt said she’s working with the group “and some people who are very interested in it and hoping to pull together what he needs.”
The La Conner situation has unique wrinkles and personalities.
But the challenge of finding a successor is a common dilemma for aging publishers of small newspapers, even ones like Stern who still run a profitable business. It’s among the reasons that an average of 2.5 newspapers close per week in the U.S., mostly weeklies.
This is also an example of how government support could help save newspapers that people still rely upon for local reporting and holding officials accountable.
A refundable tax credit under consideration in Congress would do more than save newsroom jobs and prevent closures. It would support individuals and communities wanting to acquire and sustain their local papers. A temporary boost from tax credits would also give new and existing publishers resources to modernize and stabilize these Main Street anchor businesses.
La Conner may be an exception. It has enough wealth to save the paper, if given enough time. But any new publishers will need resources, beyond the purchase price, for the venture to succeed.
La Conner’s paper calls itself the longest continuously published weekly in Washington.
That streak may pause no matter what, because Stern and his staff have planned for months to not publish the week of Christmas and have Dec. 18 be the final edition.
But on Tuesday Stern mused with me about potential dates the paper could be published and delivered in January, working around the Jan. 1 postal holiday.
Stern, who bought the paper in 2017, said he’d be sad to see it close but would rather do that than take $30,000 because “it has intrinsic value, as a business.”
“I’m not willing to give it away. It has more value to me than $30,000,” he said.
At the same time, Stern’s still trying to find a solution that works for him and the community.
“There are possibilities that there’s going to be a paper in 2025, at least make an attempt to get started for the first quarter,” Stern said.
One member of the group working to save the paper, Andrew Ashmore, told the paper they may regroup after the holidays and consider options other than the printed paper.
“It’s not over. Things are still percolating,” Aven Wright-McIntosh, another member, told me.
Hiatt is urging them to stay the course and continue publishing the paper, rather than try to start something new. I think that’s smart because of how long it would take a digital startup to develop the trust, stature and revenue of the paper.
“I told them if you lose your legal ads and on and on, the idea that a digital version is going to magically re-create the print version is highly unlikely,” Hiatt said.
The La Conner paper printed 1,100 copies a week and had 900 subscribers, plus three employees, as of October.
Residents’ effort to save the paper is impressive, especially given the tight timetable. Giving the paper a chance to serve the community for another 145 years would be a wonderful gift if they can get it done.
Oregon losses: The recent wave of newspaper sales in Oregon has a wicked undertow.
Carpenter Media Group, the Mississippi-based chain that bought papers across Oregon and Washington this year, recently laid off employees at papers in Bend, Medford and Wallowa County, OPB reports.
Carpenter acquired those papers in October when it bought EO Media from the Forrester family, which cut 28 of 185 employees and closed five papers in advance of the sale.
Carpenter earlier cut staff at Portland-area papers it acquired from Pamplin Media Group, and around half the staff at The Daily Herald in Everett.
Carpenter is also selling The Astorian and Blue Mountain Eagle buildings in Astoria and John Day, The Oregonian reports.
I’m not sure how this fulfills Carpenter’s pledge, in October, “to build on the foundations put down by the Forrester family as we continue to innovate and work to support true professional journalism for each community served.”
Meanwhile, Oregonians are being fed “AI slop” posing as journalism. OPB reports that the website of The Ashland Daily Tidings, which closed last year, is being operated by someone posting AI-generated fake news under stolen identities of real reporters.
“The goal is apparently to deceive Oregonians into giving clicks — and the resulting ad revenue — to whoever is behind the website,” OPB’s Ryan Haas writes.
This is excerpted from the free, weekly Voices for a Free Press newsletter. Sign up to receive it at the Save the Free Press website, st.news/SavetheFreePress. Seattle Times’ Brier Dudley is the editor of the Free Press Initiative, which aims to inform the public about issues facing newspapers, local news coverage, and a free press. You can learn more about the Free Press Initiative, or sign up for a newsletter, at https://company.seattletimes.com/save-the-free-press/.
