What was born in a “spit-balling” session during our weekly staff meeting discussing how to drastically increase revenue lost when three key advertisers pulled their ads just after Christmas, quickly mushroomed in to an international media event with close to one-hundred media outlets picking up our blank front page concept designed to send the message: a community without a newspaper loses its community voice.
Apparently the message resonated with others because shortly after the issue broke on March 23rd, emails began arriving from KMBC Channel 9, The Washington Post, The Kansas City Star and the Huffington Post. Later the Associated Press picked up the story and it was picked up by media outlets all over the world. Most recently, an in-depth article was published by the Seattle Times that explored legislation on the national level that seeks to level the playing field between media behemoths like Google and Facebook and locally owned, community news organizations.
Almost immediately, the donation button on our web site began getting hits, resulting in over $3500. In donations from all over the country, roughly $300 of which is recurring each month. Additionally, we had locally owned businesses reach out to us to offering help and additional ad buys. A Pendleton Heights resident who is with Landmark Bank offered to review our twice denied second round of PPP funding from the Feds. That second look resulted in us getting approved for a second round of funding, further cementing our future in the Historic Northeast community.
On the ad revenue front, our team has secured some new advertising clients such as the Merc Coop in downtown Kansas City Kansas, Mercado Fresco on the Avenue and The Kansas City Museum has drastically increased their ad buy in preparation for their opening this fall.
Thank you! If you took the time to click that donate button on our web site, we truly appreciate your support of Community Journalism. As a token of our appreciation, for those larger doners and subscribers, we’re working on getting you a premium for your subscription. It might not be a six CD set of hits by Styx great Dennis DeYoung like you get for subscribing to public television, but it’ll be a nice addition to your reading library nonetheless.
The last two weeks have been nothing short of unbelievable in terms of how far and wide our blank front page message has spread. Our award winning team here at the House of News is extremely grateful for the opportunity to keep on bringing you news and information that is relevant to our community. News stories that other media outlets kick to the curb or have no interest in covering is our bread and butter because those are the stories that matter. Mostly however, we want to say thank you to our loyal readers, our advertisers, our community and those who reached out when we put it all on the table. You’re why we’re here and hopefully will be for a long time to come.
