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News, information and much more for independent online news publishers. 
Why one LION member launched a paywall after years of 100% ads

"When Jay Senter decided to pull the trigger on launching a paywall for his local news site the Shawnee Mission Post in northeast Kansas, to say that he was nervous about readers’ reaction is an understatement. 'We had huge pits in our stomach. We’d worked really, really hard and built up a very good reputation and a very loyal readership. It was a major step into the unknown,' he said."

Nieman Lab has a story about why the Shawnee Mission Post launched a paywall after seven years of relying on advertising alone to support its local journalism.

Its success surpassed Senter's most optimistic projections. He was hoping for 1,000 paying subscribers within a year. He surpassed that number in three and a half months.

And by the way, Senter will talk about his paywall experiences at LION's annual summit (see below) in Chicago this year.

Related: You can’t sell news for what it costs to make. After giving away content, how can media companies now make people pay?


2017 LION Summit - Your last chance for an early bird discount

People planning to attend LION's 2017 summit on the business of local online news have until Tuesday, Aug. 15, to save money on registration with a discounted early-bird rate.

The annual conference at Columbia College in Chicago Oct. 26-28 is the nation's largest gathering of local independent online news publishers, with more than 35 states represented in previous years. This year's program of speakers, panels and workshops on the revenue, technology, community engagement and journalism that build local news organizations has been expanded. An early look at the agenda is here, with many more sessions being added in the coming weeks.

New this year will be a half-day "bootcamp" for new publishers and idea-stage, would-be local news entrepreneurs. It will cover business plans, choosing between non-profit and for-profit status, selling advertising for your site, other revenue streams that can support local journalism, the "technology stack" you need to run the site and business, and how to stay out of trouble legally and financially.

LION members with financial difficulty in attending the conference can apply for a special stipend.

And LION has arranged a special rate for accommodations at the Grant Park Best Western hotel, directly across the street from the conference location.

For more information about the 2017 LION Summit, or to inquire about being a sponsor or vendor, contact LION Executive Director Matt DeRienzo at mattderienzo@lionpublishers.com.


Gatehouse buys Morris: Biggest newspaper chains get even bigger

The two biggest corporate newspaper chains in the country, Gannett and Gatehouse, continue to buy up family-owned newspapers and smaller chains, move decision-making away from the communities they cover, and drastically cut local newsrooms.

A big shoe dropped earlier this week when GateHouse acquired Morris Publishing’s 11 daily newspapers.

Daily papers included in the sale were the Savannah Morning News, The Augusta Chronicle, and the Athens Banner-Herald in Georgia, The Florida Times-Union and The St. Augustine Record in Florida, the Amarillo Globe-News and Lubbock Avalanche-Journal in Texas, The Topeka (Kan.) Capital-Journal, Conway (Ark.) Log Cabin Democrat, and the Juneau Empire and Kenai Peninsula Clarion in Alaska.

Non-daily publications included in the sale under the Savannah Morning News portfolio include Bluffton (S.C.) Today, the Jasper County (S.C.) Sun Times, La Voz Latina, the Tell-N-Sell Shopper, BiS (Business in Savannah), Effingham (Ga.) Now, Bryan County (Ga.) Now and Beaufort (S.C.) Today.


LION webinar offers guide to free content from national sites

Dylan Smith, chairman of the LION Publishers board of directors and publisher of the Tucson Sentinel in Arizona, will talk about free content available for local independent online news sites from both national nonprofit and for-profit news organizations, and ways it can be localized.

This webinar is free for LION members and only $15 for non-members.

 

A special partnership has Facebook working with three LION sites

Street Fight takes a look at Facebook's partnership with LION, the Institute for Nonprofit News and the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University.

LION members Lance Knobel of Berkeleyside in California, Kelly Gilfiillan of Home Page Media in Tennessee and Glenn Burkins of Q City Metro, and INN members Texas Tribune, Civil Beat of Hawaii and Philadelphia Public School Notebook are working directly with Facebook over the coming months to better understand Facebook tools and how their presence (and their readers' and local businesses' presence) on the platform can help support local news.

Earlier, Street Fight profiled Home Page Media's efforts to increase revenue from management of clients' Facebook presence.

Related: How much has duopoly dominance impacted sustainable journalism models?


News About Local Independent Online News Sites

CANADA: How the nonprofit model could be key to creating new community newspapers across Canada.

DENVERITE: 'Be useful and delightful': Lessons learned in Denverite's first 12 months.

ETHICS: Why Your Tiny Startup Needs a Code of Conduct and How to Write One.

METRICS: Four Key Financial Metrics That All Startups Should Measure.


Tools and Tips: Advertising and Revenue

BAD ADS: Google reveals sites with ‘failing’ ads, including Forbes, LA Times.

DATA: Trade-offs between personal data privacy, customer analytics.

MEMBERSHIPS: Readers are the future of paying for high-quality journalism, and other lessons from the summer of 2017. The Membership Puzzle offers insight into why the de Correspondent membership program has been successful.

MOBILE: As mobile advertising becomes more popular, viewability becomes more important.

NATIVE ADVERTISING: 60% of content created by brands is ‘just clutter.’

NEWSLETTERS: In 2017, the one thing every digital-native news outlet needs is a newsletter (not an app). CTOR – the Email Marketing Metric You May Not Know.

PROGRAMMATIC: Want readers to start trusting you again? Stop stalking them across the internet.


Tools and Tips: Journalism and Technology

ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM: Tools for better accountability journalism, from API. Here are some ways to make accountability journalism better so people will actually read it.

CRIME: Should coverage of local crime news make us afraid?

DATA: Ten principles for data journalism in its second decade. Why journalists need data and coding skills more than ever. The art of storytelling meets the science of data analysis.

ENGAGEMENT: These five lessons for libraries who want to innovate apply to news organizations as well. For its first Facebook community, Bloomberg brought readers together to talk about personal finance.

HOME PAGES: What’s The Goal Of A News Site Homepage in 2017?

MOBILE: Mojo Workin’: Editing on a Smartphone. What Are Users Thinking When They Dismiss Notifications? Remember when the iPad was going to be the key to the media business?

PROFANITY: Trying to decide if you should publish that dirty word? Here’s a step-by-step guide.

REPORTING: We need to learn how to find the stories no one else is telling.

SOCIAL MEDIA: "How I Doubled The Reach Of My Facebook Posts Without Spending Money."

STORY COMMENTS: AL.com experiments with having readers moderate each other's story comments. Brighton paper launched by journalist to 'atone' for setting up Mail Online reader comments section.

VIDEO: We’re in the early stages of a visual revolution in journalism. Group Nine reduced its reliance on viral videos and saw its views soar 59 percent. With new site, The Ringer is giving more real estate to podcasts and video (but keeping writing front-and-center).


Industry News

APPLE: Apple’s “walled garden” approach to content has paid off massively.

FACEBOOK: Facebook is expelling unintentional clicks from its garden. Is Facebook’s mobile attribution model fair? The New Copycats: How Facebook squashes competition from startups. Facebook is starting to put more posts from local politicians into people’s News Feed. Inside the partisan fight for your news feed. Facebook’s latest move to fight fake news might finally be the right one. Facebook criticized for inconsistent enforcement of hate speech policies. With an eye on the duopoly, German broadcasters create a unified consumer login. Facebook and Google algorithms are the new ‘useful idiots.’ How to convert blog posts into Facebook Instant Articles — no coding required.

FACT CHECKING: Being in a Group Makes Us Less Likely to Fact-Check.

FAKE NEWS: How to Teach Children to Critically Evaluate Information Online. The media today: Fake news goes global.
'It's hurt my wallet' — How one fake news publisher is faring after Facebook crackdown. Mozilla wants to matter more in the fight against misinformation.

FOIA: Local TV station records lawsuit underscores North Carolina’s text message troubles. Why arguments against the Washington Post's Oval Office leaks are wrong.

FOX: Confusion, anger inside Fox News over lack of answers in network's Seth Rich probe.

GANNETT: Dallas Morning News parent contracts with Gannett to produce print, digital ads.

INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS: Utah newspaper carrier appeals in suit over tips and expenses.

LAYOFFS: Dear veteran journalists who've been laid off, you deserve better. (And pssst ... start your own thing! LION can help you start your own thing.)

MAYNARD: After a strenuous year of rethinking its mission, the Maynard Institute launches new diversity initiatives.

MILLENNIALS: How each generation interacts with news media.

NEW YORK TIMES: Buyouts taken, voices lost at New York Times.

PODCASTING: The podcast business playbook: What’s the best way for a podcast studio to raise money? How the podcast boom is finally forcing radio to become more diverse.

PRESS FREEDOM: Jeff Sessions Floats Media Subpoenas. Under Sessions, the Justice Department is cracking down on leakers. TechDirt, sued by the lawyer who fought Gawker, gets $250,000 to cover freedom of speech issues. Has U.S. press freedom gotten worse under Trump? A new site aims to find out. Five journalists have been assaulted at Trump rallies this year. Ten face criminal charges. North Carolina reporter: ‘no consistency’ on Capitol press credentials.

PUBLIC EDITORS: Public editors are disappearing in U.S. newsrooms. But abroad, they’re more important than ever.

SINCLAIR: Diverse Groups Combine to Oppose Sinclair-Tribune Local TV Takeover. Concerns, political and commercial, over Sinclair’s dominance of local TV.

TRUMP: The media’s fatal flaw? It’s elitism, argues a conservative professor. How a network of little-known Twitter “rooms” helps die-hard fans amplify Trump’s message, attack CNN.

WIKITRIBUNE: Jimmy Wales thinks WikiTribune can fix the news. Is he right?

YOUTUBE: Months Removed From a Brand-Safety Boycott, YouTube Is Winning Over Top Advertisers Again.


UPCOMING EVENTS

LION SUMMIT - CHICAGO: Save the dates! LION Publishers' annual conference will be held Oct. 26-28 in Chicago.

LION WEBINARS: LION Publishers hosts a monthly webinar series. Upcoming webinars:
* Aug. 17: Free content for local publishers from national partners, with Tucson Sentinel Publisher Dylan Smith.
* Sept. 14: Hiring, paying and managing sales reps at local independent online news sites, with ARLNow.com Publisher Scott Brodbeck, Home Page Media Publisher Kelly Gilfillan and Richland Source Publisher Jay Allred.


Is Your LION Publishers Membership Up for Renewal?
 
For many of our LION Publishers members, it's time to renew! Your membership includes participation in the LION Publishers Den on Facebook, networking and support from fellow LION publishers, our new newsletter, discounted rates on media liability and directors and officers insurance and more. 

Plus, being a member gives you access to a members-only rate to the LION Summit – a savings of up to $175 compared to the non-member rate. If your membership is due for renewal, please go to http://www.lionpublishers.com/members/dues/renew to submit your payment. Those who opt for multi-year membership save, and easy, secure payment options are available via credit card or through Paypal. (Not sure when your membership expires? You can look it up easily on LIONPublishers.com.)

 
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