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Today is March 25, 2021.

  • The National Weather Service issued a high wind watch for Northeast Ohio starting after midnight tonight and lasting until tomorrow afternoon. Gusts up to 60 mph. Make sure you've got batteries for your flashlights. Otherwise, it'll be cloudy and warm today with a high of 75.
     
  • It's the first anniversary of The Portager, and we're sending out a special issue today. Below we announce the launch of our new website and provide details about the future of the publication. Thanks for reading!

Meet your new Portage County news website!


I’ve got great news for you. You’ll never have to go to Medium.com to read The Portager again.

Thanks to your support, we’ve launched theportager.com.

(The mobile site is good, but I encourage you to check it out on your desktop as well.)

We’ll publish all our stories there, and we’ll constantly be improving the site. You can help us make it more useful by sharing your feedback. How’s the layout? Is something missing?

Think of theportager.com as a digital town square for Portage County that isn’t owned and operated from Silicon Valley. It’s ours.

Also, there’s no paywall, and there never will be. So anyone in Portage County can always get access to the latest local news and events, whether you can afford it or not.

This is actually really important. Paywalls on local journalism aren’t just annoying — they’re bad for communities and democracy.

We’ve done surveys with readers and potential readers in Portage County. A surprisingly large number of people told us they value local journalism and want to support our work but simply don’t have the income right now. Those folks have just as much need for accurate information as everybody else. When more of us are informed, the whole community benefits.

You’ll notice there are already some advertisers on the site. I’m very grateful for their support of local news. More sponsors are on the way, and I’ll be thanking them all specifically in a future newsletter.
 

How we’re doing financially


This brings me to my next point: money.

As I’ve mentioned many times, I decided to launch the website at the same time as a subscription drive. The reason for this is first of all pragmatic: We wanted to have a nice landing page to send you to where you can see the subscription options and sign up. Second, we wanted to be able to prove to you that we could deliver a consistent and valuable news product.

The day has finally arrived when I feel comfortable asking for your support to make The Portager a viable business that will last for decades to come.

For the moment, our financial outlook gives us plenty of reason to be optimistic. We have enough revenue to pay freelancers and provide stipends for interns. We are also able to cover the monthly fees for the various online services we use. And we paid a web developer to create the new site.

I’m not able to pay myself, however. This has been OK because I have a day job on the marketing team of a tech company (ProtonMail). But working 95 hours a week for the last year has taken a toll on my health and cut deeply into family time (I've got two little kids). I’m not complaining! This is enjoyable and gratifying work. But I’m putting a lot of stock in this subscription drive to help me transition into paid employment for The Portager.

I want The Portager to be primarily funded by readers, not advertisers or foundations. The reason for this is independence. You might be surprised, but I’ve actually had one business and even a local candidate for office threaten to withhold advertising because they didn’t like our coverage. (Neither ended up advertising anyway.)

I'd like to avoid that drama and stay mostly reader-funded. You pay us; we work for you. It’s simple.
 

The future of The Portager


Several people in the community have asked me what my goal is for The Portager. What do I want it to become?

Actually, it's not about what I want it to become. You've been driving the direction since before Day One.

Starting in November 2019, we began a series of surveys and one-on-one interviews with Portage County residents about local news. We asked questions about where you live and what you’re interested in. We asked what kinds of stories you like to read and what you feel is lacking.

You told us you want more coverage of local government, local businesses and nonprofits, better coverage of rural areas (not just Kent and Ravenna), and obituaries (these are coming soon). Lower on the list but still important were schools, food insecurity and criminal justice.

We’re on it. You’ve probably noticed that reporter Wendy DiAlesandro has been covering local government meetings all over the county. Michael Indriolo has been driving our coverage of the sheriff’s office. Natalie Wolford, my sister, has lately spearheaded our Covid-19 coverage.

In the past year, we broke major local stories that led to the resignation of two Rootstown school board members, exposed big salary increases inside the sheriff’s office and kept you constantly up to date about the local Covid-19 response. We even launched an open government initiative to make sure anyone could attend county commission meetings via Facebook Live after the commissioners decided to shut down live streaming.

Much of the reporting I’m most proud of has been less flashy, like letting people know where to get food assistance or how you can donate or volunteer with local charities. I have received comments that these updates have had a direct positive impact on people’s lives.

Research shows that communities with strong local news sources have:

I’ve compiled anecdotal evidence that we’ve had a real impact in each of these areas. But there are so many great stories we just can’t get to. At current resources, we can't fully deliver on the kind of local news coverage you've told us you want.

We’ve done the math: We need at least 2,000 subscribers to cover Portage County properly. Here’s what that gets us:

  • A full-time editor (hello)
  • A managing editor
  • Five reporters and photojournalists
  • A small budget for freelancers and interns
  • Overhead like office space and service fees


Anything over that goal will let us dream bigger, and I plan to seek your input on how we can be most helpful to you.

But mainly we're trying to avoid this type of situation.
 

Are you with us?


The difference between 500 paid subscribers and 2,000 is substantial. It’s the difference between paying myself and some freelancers to essentially continue this as a hobby or actually having a thriving business that serves the entire county with consistent original coverage.

Let's break down the numbers.

We currently have 4,700 newsletter subscribers, a little over half of whom open our emails on a given day. About 330 of you are already paying. That means we need every person reading this who isn’t already a subscriber to sign up.

It’s ambitious! I know. But I believe in what we’re doing. It matters. And I have a year’s worth of proof that The Portager community can accomplish ambitious goals.

I know some of you can’t afford it. That’s totally fine. You’re absolutely welcome to keep getting The Portager for free. Here’s how you can know if this option is for you: If you have to think about how The Portager fits into your budget, then don’t do that — this option is for you. No questions asked.

But maybe instead of $17/month you can pay $5 or $10. We also allow people to choose their own price. Some of our subscribers pay $1/month, and I love them for doing so.

Or, if you can afford to pay more than $17/month, you will be helping to subsidize our free subscription program. For those of you choosing this option, I’m grateful for your solidarity.

OK, it’s now or never. Let’s do this.
 

SUBSCRIBE


If anything is unclear about any of this, please let me know. Based on your responses, I’ll also publish an FAQ next week. Sometimes these logistical, technological things can be a pain. I’d like to make things as simple as possible. Just reply to this email with your questions.

And finally, I want to thank you. While challenging, this year has been incredibly rewarding and has filled me with optimism about our community and about the journalism industry.

I always ask job candidates what they would do if they didn’t have to work. It’s a way to understand who they are underneath the transactional pressures of a labor-management situation.

Know what I’d be doing if I didn’t have to work?

This.


Ben

330-249-1338
ben@theportager.com

Portage County’s locally owned news source.
Our mission is to share ideas and action that help our community thrive.
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Publisher Ben Wolford and managing editor Natalie Wolford write these emails. Reporters Roger Di Paolo, Michael Indriolo, Wendy DiAlesandro, Liv Sendelbach and Kayla McLeod are contributors. Tom Hardesty is sports columnist. Roger Hoover is the creative director.

Interested in joining The Portager? Write to jobs@theportager.com.

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