Starting in late February or early March, residents of North Carolina will have a new statewide newspaper – the North State Journal – to read, reports Raleigh & Company. North State Journal will be a morning paper, delivered five days a week, Tuesday through Friday and Sunday. It will be the only statewide newspaper in North Carolina.
Based in Raleigh, the North State Journal’s mission is “to delve deep, engage with truth, help citizens find common ground, and fill a void in North Carolina’s media landscape,” says the newspaper’s website. The newspaper will include North Carolina news, business news, sports, opinion and features, and its top editors are all from North Carolina.North State Journal is being led by publisher Neal Robbins who wants the Journal to fill the void left by community papers who publish weekly or twice weekly.”There is a void in North Carolina’s media landscape, especially in balanced, thorough reporting,” said publisher Neal Robbins in a press release. “So many stories across the state deserve our attention. The North State Journal will give North Carolinians the facts they need to elevate the conversation, make informed decisions, and broaden their awareness of our remarkable state.””We just see ourselves existing in that ecosystem of information,” said Robbins, manager of North State Media LLC and the Journal’s publisher. “We see ourselves as having no competitors. We’re kind of capturing a macro-niche in the market between your local newspaper and your big national newspaper.””We’re going to give a lot of people in North Carolina access to something they don’t have – a statewide conversation,” Robbins added. “We definitely didn’t go out and copy anybody. I wish there was [an existing model]. We tried to find that, but I can’t point to anything and say that was my inspiration.”In addition to being a statewide newspaper, the North State Journal has a few other differentiating factors:
- A focus on quality journalism
- Experience in the North Carolina political arena
- Newspaper is being designed by a world-class, world-renown newspaper designer
- A designed focused on high-impact photos
- Staff-produced content as well as syndicated content
- A strong sports writing team
How will the newspaper make money? Subscriptions, newsstand sales, advertising and cash from investors. The Journal has a variety of print and digital subscription packages available at different price points, ranging from $52/year for a 12-month digital-only subscription to $260/year for a special buy-one-get-one-free full print and digital subscription. The broadsheet print edition will include three sections and 28 pages and will be available for $2 an issue. Online stories will sit behind a paywall.The North State Journal is still in the planning stages, and it is working on staffing its newsroom with North Carolina reporters, commentators and photojournalists.Prior to this venture, North State Media launched three websites earlier this year: Jones & Blount, a site about North Carolina politics; Chicken Bone Alley, a NASCAR-focused site; and Carolina Brew Review, a craft beer site. Once the North State Journal launches, Jones & Blount and Chicken Bone Alley content will be combined with the newspaper site.Insider Take:As newspapers are tightening their belts and trying to sort out their business models, publisher Neal Robbins is taking a chance on a print publication – a five-day-a-week, statewide newspaper. Newspapers are always in the news, but lately most of that news involves newspaper groups being bought and sold and trying different business models. We rarely hear of new launches, so this is exciting news.Of course, there will be naysayers, but we like what we’ve heard about this launch and how Robbins and his team are going about it. Here are a few of the positives the North State Journal has going for it – and things other subscription companies can learn from:
- North State Media launched three websites earlier this year. One of those sites – Jones & Blount – has helped the media company establish credibility in the political reporting arena and create an audience interested in North Carolina politics. A portion of that audience is likely to transfer over to the North State Journal when the sites are combined after the newspaper’s launch.
- North State Media is using the experience it gained with those first three sites to figure out what works and what doesn’t. They are likely to leverage contact information and data from those sites as it builds a new audience.
- Robbins and his PR team have started the buzz early, launching a preliminary website and social media accounts, issuing a press release and doing media interviews to tell the public about the venture. This early exposure will help the newspaper create demand among subscribers and advertisers, as well as help it attract journalism talent.
- Robbins sees an opportunity to fill the void that community papers can’t fill, and he is creating a product and building a team that can deliver timely statewide news, politics, sports and features to an audience that is underserved.
- Based on the subscription packages available, we’re guessing that the North State Journal is testing different price points to see what the maximum price threshold is for its print and digital packages. We anticipate they’ll whittle down the choices as they get closer to launch. As they do this, we hope they’ll select a different format for the subscription page into a table or a format that allows subscribers to easily compare the different packages and to subscribe in as few steps as possible.
This is an exciting new venture. We hope it is successful and that other publishers will ignore the “print is dead” mantra and look for opportunities like this to fill news voids left by community papers.~ Dana E. Neuts, Subscription Insider
