We're off to a great start in our effort to transition to a voluntary subscription/donation model in order to continue publishing The Bradenton Times, but we still need much more help to become a break-even operation and are counting on you, our dedicated readers, to keep coming through.
No one needs to tell you that newspapers have been taking a beating for years.The transition to digital news has been disastrous for the bottom lines of local papers all around the country. Between 2004 and 2014, U.S. newspapers lost $30 billion in print revenue, while gaining only $2 billion in digital revenue.
During that time, local government and statehouse reporters were cut by a third. Investigative reporting, which requires lots of man-hours to produce comparatively little copy, has disappeared from most local publications completely, even though it is the most important journalism when it comes to holding power accountable. Today, there are fewer reporters working in the industry than at any time since that data began being collected in the 1970s–and that's not even adjusted for population growth.
This has all made it much easier for special interests to distort public perception by hiring political operatives to further muddy the narrative, while other such interests simply start their own "news sites" to spread the same sort of propaganda to serve their interests with voters and the public.
Our political divisiveness has made the old advertising-based model, already broken by other digital marketing behemoths like Google and Facebook, much less viable as well. Following the 2016 election, we lost several of our biggest advertisers, simply because we reported on unsavory aspects of Donald Trump's presidency. Considering that our fact-based coverage of issues regarding Big Development and Big Phosphate had already left us persona non grata with many of Florida's biggest local advertising sources, the blow was nearly fatal.
Many of you will remember that in the spring of 2017, we announced that the Times would be shutting down. The public outcry was significant and our publisher, Joe McClash, decided that although we would transition from a daily publication to a weekly one, he'd keep the lights on and do it on his own dime.
When the Coronavirus pandemic hit, TBT responded with vastly increased coverage to better inform our community and our readership nearly tripled. However, that did very little in terms of revenue. Nonetheless, we decided to capitalize on the demand, bringing on Dawn Kitterman to do local investigative work, and expanding from just a Sunday edition, to a three-times-a-week publication, adding our Midweek Update and TBT Weekender, as well as breaking news alerts.
All of this has meant more readers, more expenses, but no additional revenue beyond the very small amount we get from Google-placed ads. We have always aimed to avoid adding a paywall that keeps all but those who pay a hefty subscription from accessing more than 1-2 articles a month as nearly every other publication does. We truly believe that it is critical for all citizens to be able to access high-quality local journalism if our local governments are going to be held accountable. And I don't need to tell you that the citizens are currently losing that fight.
As a result, we are asking you, our readers, to voluntarily purchase a subscription here for just $7 a month. If you truly cannot afford that amount, we ask that you give a donation, in any amount you can, when you can, at this link. If you are fortunate enough to be in a position to pay more so that our reporting can get out to more people who cannot afford to subscribe, enhancing the likelihood that it will lead to positive change at the ballot box, you can give a one-time or recurring donation of whatever amount you wish here.
In return, you can count on TBT to continue speaking truth to power and informing the local community with high-quality journalism, so that we can return to local governments that represent their citizens rather than the special interests who sponsor their campaigns. It has long been said that the job of a free and independent press is to comfort the afflicted while afflicting the comfortable. At The Bradenton Times, we take that to heart every single day. Please support us in our efforts to continue our work and together we will make a difference in this community.
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