My thoughts on Prince William Times new non-profit ownership

More layoffs in the local news industry are expected next week following the merger of Gannett and GateHouse Media.

• With USA Today and 266 local news outlets in tow, the $1.4 billion deal will create the largest newspaper company in the U.S.
• The new company, to be dubbed Gannett, will operate from Gannett’s current Tysons Corner headquarters.
• At least 10% of the staff inside local newsrooms who work at these newspapers are expected to lose their jobs as the new firm looks for ways to cut costs.

Inevitably, as it has in every other newspaper company merger or closure, the amount of local news coverage in the affected communities will decrease.

• That means fewer people watching local governments who spend taxpayer money, making decisions about local schools, healthcare, planning and zoning, political redistricting — the list goes on and on.

While there are no papers in Potomac Local Land to be affected by the new merger, we did see one newspaper in our area — yet again — be affected by the changing tides in the local news industry.

• The Fauquier Times, along with its Prince William Times and subsequent publications, was purchased by the non-profit Piedmont Journalism Foundation for $1,000.
• That’s a far cry from the millions a group of Fauquier County investors ponied up in 2016 to “save” the newspaper in 2016 when then-owner Peter Arundel was looking to sell.

Newspapers like the Philadelphia Inquirer, Salt Lake City Tribune have made the move to non-profit ownership.

• Online outlets like the Texas Tribune and Pro Publica have also produced great journalism, and have built engaged communities around their work.

As The Fauquier Times makes its transition, I hope it sees similar success, as the non-profit business model — while not for us here at Potomac Local — has a lot of potential to do a lot of good for the community.

I like the ability of us “for-profit” news organizations to partner with non-profit outlets.

• Earlier this year, I was pleased to post a story about opioid addiction in our region penned by the Piedmont Journalism Foundation.

For us, posting that story on Potomac Local was a way to help expand the reach of that story and for them, it was a way to further their mission of reporting on issues that matter here in Virginia.

• I look forward to more of these kinds of opportunities in the future.

I’m also following City Bureau in Chicago, who trains and pays reporters (called documenters) to attend public meetings and write about what happens.

• City Bureau, like most non-profit news outlets, distributes their content on multiple “competing” (to borrow a term from the old media world) outlets with the idea that the more people who see it, not where they see it, is what matters most.
• Some of the best reporting we’re seeing today is being produced by folks who have never been to J-school.