The Town Crier’s Membership model — and the resultant increased advertising by businesses and nonprofits — have saved your hill newspaper from the fate suffered by many community papers throughout our country.
The New York Times just recently published a sad story about a small-town newspaper in Warroad, Minnesota — the Warroad Pioneer — which folded after 121 years of serving the community. Now, those folks have no local newspaper at all. Warroad appears to be so much like our town. Reading the story, you feel you know the folks there. We wish they had tried a membership model like the one that is working for our hill. The Times story is heart-wrenching. Please read it here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/us/warroad-pioneer-news-desert.html.
Thanks to you all — with less than one month left in our second membership year — your Town Crier has steadily increased its active membership over its first membership year.
Our advertisers know that your memberships make advertising in the Town Crier focused. They are reaching folks who avidly support our hill’s community. And many hundreds of additional readers purchase the Town Crier each week at nine local businesses.
Our inquiries reveal that, unlike daily newspapers that get tossed out the next day, readers keep and read their Town Crier newspapers for an entire week until the next issue is published. That’s a whole week of newspaper advertising for the price of one newspaper advertisement. Your memberships have helped increase that focused advertising.
So, if you’ve renewed your membership already, thank you! If you haven’t renewed — or you’ve not yet become a member — it’s not too late to join your friends and neighbors who support our independent journalism. Please remember that the Town Crier reports on the actions of eight tax-supported, local governmental agencies on our hill. They are monitored solely by the Town Crier. We attend their meetings when you can’t. We report what happens so you stay informed.
Thank you, also, to those of you who come to our weekly news meetings — unlike those of any other newspaper we know — are open to the public. The Town Crier is your community newspaper, and we want your voices heard, so come join us at Idyllwild Library at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday mornings.
