J.C. Derrick
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard someone in the community say they want to subscribe to Mainstreet Daily News.
It’s a wonderful sentiment, but there’s just one problem: Mainstreet does not have a paywall, and our newspaper is free.
Our business model has been primarily built on various forms of advertising. We are incredibly grateful for each of our advertisers—and are earnestly looking for more!—but we always knew ads alone would not be enough to make Mainstreet successful in the long term.
In recent years, as Big Tech has gobbled up enormous portions of advertising dollars, a growing consensus has emerged in the journalism industry: The successful local news business model includes a mix of advertising, reader revenue and philanthropy.
Now, for the first time, Mainstreet offers all three. On Thursday we launched a brand-new membership program that features four benefits: an exclusive member newsletter, occasional meetups with Mainstreet staff and other members, special access to events (think: Gator sports, theater tickets and more), and—most importantly—the satisfaction of knowing you are helping to build a stronger community.
We hope to add to these initial offerings, but we are proud to offer this lineup now and keep our content free and open to everyone in the community.
If you appreciate our work and want it to continue, please become a member—and encourage a friend to do the same.
On our new membership page, you’ll notice something else: the opportunity to make a tax-deductible donation to Mainstreet. An exciting new partnership with the Florida Press Foundation makes this option possible.
The Seattle Times pioneered philanthropic support for journalism, and this model has spread into a major national movement. Here in Florida, the Orlando Sentinel, the Miami Herald and the Tampa Bay Times are among the many newspapers that have made tax-deductible contributions a major part of their business model.
The reason is simple: Public-service journalism, and specifically investigative reporting, is time-consuming and expensive. Without public support, it would not make financial sense to do it.
There’s a reason many local newspapers are full of wire copy written in other cities.
But public-service journalism is critical to the health of a community, which is why Mainstreet is committed to it. Researchers have found that, in communities where a newspaper closed, government costs rose, including bond rates as much as 11 basis points higher.
“Those civic watchdogs make a difference to the bottom line,” Bloomberg reported.
In September, a coalition of 22 donors pledged a combined $500 million to launch Press Forward, a national initiative to bolster local news.
“Press Forward will enhance local journalism at an unprecedented level to re-center local news as a force for community cohesion,” the MacArthur Foundation said in a press release.
Mainstreet is proud to join this national movement to benefit Gainesville and the surrounding area. We hope you will consider us as part of your year-end giving plans (click here to give).
And whether you donate or not, we hope every Mainstreet reader will become a member to take a stand for independent local news.
Thank you