Reshaping local news: We need your help building a sustainable local news outlet

2024 was an amazing year and we have come so far. We began publishing 2023, but in 2024 we have taken huge strides in building a new kind of local news outlet, but we still have a long way to go. As the end of the year approaches, we ask you to consider a tax-deductible financial contribution to help us continue to build a sustainable local news outlet.

Most of you know me, but for those who don’t, I have been working in local news for over 25 years. Print news, broadcast news, and now internet news. Over that time the nature of the news business has changed dramatically. With the rise of the internet and social media, the way news and information are both gathered and delivered is hardly recognizable from when I first started my career in news.

Some history

Ever since the printing press was invented print media has been the backbone of the news industry. Yes, broadcast media has brought the news to consumers in more ways, but print media was still the main way that information was gathered. The boots on the ground, listening, asking questions and talking to people.

That all changed with the rise of the internet. The main sources of revenue for print publications traditionally were subscriptions and ad sales. The three main sources for ad revenue were classified ads, real estate ads and automobile dealers. If you want to search for any of those things today, where do you look? Your phone or computer. This shrinking revenue pie forced publications and media outlets to cut people and resources. Those cuts meant less coverage and less content. The downward spiral was inevitable.

For a while publishers thought they could just take their print or broadcast content and slap it on a webpage to replace that lost revenue. It has become abundantly clear now that those online ads will never replace the level of revenue that was lost to the internet. We don’t need to tell you how that has impacted the news industry. And specifically local news. The Medill Local News Initiative is led by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism reported the following:

Our 2022 report, the State of Local News Project predicted that by the end of 2025, the United States would have lost one-third of its print newspapers over the past two decades. In this year’s report, we found that the country has already exceeded that mark. A little fewer than 5,600 newspapers remain, 80% of which are weeklies.

Newspaper employment has continued to decline. From 2022 to 2023, newsroom jobs – mostly reporters and editors – decreased by almost 2,000 positions while newspaper employment overall shrank by more than 7,000 jobs, compared to the few hundred lost in the previous year. There are now fewer than 100,000 people employed in the newspaper publishing industry overall, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 20 U.S. states, there are fewer than 1,000 newspaper employees remaining.

Beyond newspapers, this report also tracks more than 660 stand-alone digital news sites, 227 public broadcasters and more than 700 ethnic media outlets. Compared with last year, we saw a net increase of more than 105 stand-alone digital sites (including 30 newspapers moving online after ending their weekly print editions) and a net decrease of 10 ethnic media outlets. But as with stand-alone digital news-sites, the coverage of these networks is heavily concentrated in urban and suburban areas, with more than 95% located in 179 metropolitan counties.

In other words, most new digital news initiatives are happening in urban areas, very few are being started where the most glaring news holes are, rural America.

How important is that loss of coverage in rural areas? The analogy I often use is, letting your local news coverage die is the equivalent of firing your police department of your fire department. If there is no one to watch local governments and institutions, bad things are bound to happen. People are busy and we take our role if being the eyes and ears for the community very seriously.

So, what is the answer?

That’s where VernonReporter.Com comes in. We have joined a rising tide of independent news outlets around the country (usually traditional news reporters like me) that are looking to replace the hole left by the retreat of “legacy” outlets that no longer have the resources to do the kind of coverage consumers say they want. We are using a non-profit model that is still new but proving that it can be successful in providing the resources necessary to cover local news the way it needs to be covered. Boots on the ground. Listening, talking and engaging their community.

VernonReporter.Com (Red Dress Media Inc) is non-profit 501(c)3 and a member of LION Publishing, a 500+ member organization that includes independent news publishers in the U.S. and Canada that are working to bring local news back to what it once was. It is not a simple or easy task, and the road is filed with setbacks and challenges. But I am convinced this work is absolutely essential for small communities in a democracy. Communities cannot make good decisions without good information.

Even though the news industry is changing at a lightning pace I am convinced one thing will never change – there still must be someone going to the meetings and gathering the information. A real person talking to real people. We can leverage technology to help us condense and deliver new in new and better ways, but we will never get away from someone being on the ground to get that information.

How can you help?

Our goal is to have at least two full-time staff to make that model work long-term. To make that happen we are focusing on several revenue streams that many non-profits are utilizing to make that goal a reality. Up to this point I have self-funded the infrastructure to establish a base of operations and we have a small group of individual supporters that are covering some of the monthly overhead costs to keep the technology running. The other revenue streams we are pursuing include large individual donors, large institutional sources, journalism organizations, foundations and sponsorships/underwriting.

Where will the money go?

We are committed to creating a long-term sustainable news outlet that can meet the needs of Vernon County, and perhaps beyond. The money we raise stays here, in Vernon County. It will not go to a corporate office somewhere in another state to pay shareholders. It will fund news coverage by local people in your community.

If you followed our coverage over the last year, you know we have covered so many important local issues and events. County government that has moved to a professional management structure with a county coordinator. Staffing changes, wage increases, disciplinary issues, switching the county nursing facility to outside management, the expansion of the county landfill. The decommissioning of all of Vernon County’s flood control dams.

At the city level we have covered the development of a new housing project, the downtown traffic realignment project, the removal of the old city hall, the approval of a new fire station and the acquisition and development of the Hanson property. We brought you the development and ribbon cutting for a major new grocery store.

We brought you the arrest of a suspect in a nearly 40-year old murder case. We have also livestreamed hundreds of local government meetings to our YouTube and Facebook channels.

We have also added more features to our website. We added the ability for anyone to post an event to our events calendar. We are in the process of adding the ability to self-post obituaries. We added election coverage and national news thanks to a partnership with the Associated Press via our LION network.

But as long as the list of accomplishments is, there is an equally long list of stories and features we were not able to get to because we just do not have the resources. We would like to do more to cover courts and policing. We have a relatively new judge, district attorney and sheriff. What kind of job are they doing? On any given month our court calendar is filled with important local cases we would like to cover better. We would like to cover local school districts in more detail. All of these areas of coverage take time and resources.

That’s where you come in.

Giving a tax-deductible donation to VernonReporter.Com will enable us to build a sustainable news organization that will be able to cover local news now, and well into the future. We have heard from you over and over again that you want this kind of coverage and content. You want someone to bring you the information and you are willing to support an outlet that can deliver on that promise. We are here to tell you that if you can support us, we will do our best to bring you that coverage and content.

Click here to go to our donation page

Or if you prefer to mail a check you can send it to

Vernon Reporter

P.O. Box 45, Viroqua, WI  54665