There wasn’t one person, outside of Joel Klaassen (founding publisher of The Hillsboro Free Press) that thought we would succeed long-term with Newton Now. We got a lot of support early. I love these people more than you can know. They wanted us to succeed, but I could see it in many eyes as we told them our plan to launch a competitive weekly newspaper in a market that had a 5-day corporate newspaper. They were going to support us….
The answer is yes. Newton Now has a slightly different model, but we built that newspaper with the same question in mind. Charging for our content is the best way to move forward with large scale journalism, unless you run a free paper like our Hillsboro Free Press product. Tulsa start-up is banking on the answer being yes
Nohing can change without a movement, whether it be small or large. For years, Harvey County’s favorite Marketing Dude, Bruce Beyhmer, former Kansas Publishing Ventures (KPV) Owner Joel Klaassen, and myself (Joey Young, current KPV Owner) have been asked about Newton and why we weren’t opening a paper there. A wonderful community without a wonderful newspaper to serve it, Newton has been underserved for years, ever since its daily paper was sold to Gatehouse, a company that owns hundreds of…