A WordPress-Powered Publisher Describes Their First Year as a Non-Profit

Vince Dice is the editor of Gig Harbor Now, a nonprofit news organization in Gig Harbor, near Seattle.

His publication is celebrating its first birthday this week and he has interesting story to tell, that sums up many trends with local news in 2022.

For many years, Vince was connected to a newspaper called “Gig Harbor Life”, but things changed. This is from Vince’s launch post:

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WordPress Powers Almost Every Publisher at the Nonprofit News Awards

The central idea here at KinshiPress is that this is an exciting new time for journalism. There is a large group of new publishers that are mostly non-profit, mission-driven, and powered by WordPress.

This week provided excellent evidence to back up this idea. The Institute for Nonprofit News released their nominations for the “Nonprofit News Awards 2022”. Almost every single site is powered by WordPress.

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What Happened When 4 Small Publishers Moved to WordPress?

The Local Media Association is a trade group that focuses on the business side of local media. They try to help newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations grow their bottom line.

They’ve just put out a detailed report explaining what happened when several Black-owned local media outlets moved to WordPress and Newspack. This list shows the publishers involved in the project. Check out the history behind some of these organizations!

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Why Are Local News Publishers Growing in 2022?

Since early in 2022, I’ve been blogging here on KinshiPress about the explosion in local news publishers. Initially that was driven by a gut-feeling that something exciting is in the early, formative stages. These publishers are mostly non-profit, mission-driven, and powered by WordPress.

There’s now data to back that up: The Institute for Non-Profit News is reporting strong growth for local news startups.

This growth is happening, but why now? Why didn’t it happen 10 or 15 years ago? Many of the tools and motivations that these publishers are using also existed back then.

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Baltimore Beat Launches as a WordPress Publisher in Baltimore

Back in May, we covered the upcoming launch of Baltimore Beat as a Black-led, Black-controlled nonprofit newspaper. The site launched this week.

You can read the launch post from Lisa Snowden, the newspaper’s editor:

We wanted to tell stories that reflected the fact that Baltimore City’s residents are more than 60% Black. We wanted to give Black writers the opportunities to tell their own stories.

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