By Judy Clabes
NKyTribune Editor
Our readers should already know, but in case you don’t, the NKyTribune is a nonprofit newspaper, one of a growing body of nonprofit newsrooms across the country. Our emphasis is on local news and local public service.
We are a group of professional journalists who believe in the importance of an informed citizenry to democracy, in honest and ethical reporting and writing, and in caring deeply about our homeplace. We mean to sustain local journalism in the right way for all the right reasons.
The NKyTribune aims to fill a void in the region for focused local news, a generous helping of state news to keep the region connected and informed – and generally serve both readers and the marketplace with a newspaper – albeit online – it can be proud to call its own.
Today, we start Day One of our NewsMatch campaign.
Having been selected by a coalition of national funders who are stepping forward to preserve and advance local nonprofit news, we are participating for the third time in a campaign that will match – that means double – every individual’s contribution to the NKyTribune between now and December 31.
The idea is one we embrace wholeheartedly – that local news should be supported by its readers voluntarily and that support should be widespread and broad throughout our readership area.
Our goal is $100,000. Ambitious but doable in a region like Northern Kentucky.
We will have matches from NewsMatch and others for every penny.
If you like reading the NKyTribune, if you like having local news back again, if you want to see it grow, expand the staff and just do more – then we need your help.
Our news is free to all. We will not have a pay-wall and will not require payment. That’s voluntary and we hope our readers understand why the support is necessary. Everyone should be able to get the news. News-gathering is not cheap. The news doesn’t put itself on our pages or keep the technology working or volunteer to answer emails or the phone or pay the bills. However modest our expenses are, they are still expenses, honest and true. And we want to hire more reporters and editors who understand how to do what we do.
If we want to continue grand experiments like the printed NKyTribune every NKyian received in their mailboxes in early October, then we have to have the resources that will support the publications in 2020. We can do it – but we have to pay for it.
It doesn’t take much from each individual if everyone participates, if everyone engages, if everyone wants to sustain a reliable local news outlet.
Join us today at the starting gate. Help us kick off our campaign in grand style.
Click here to contribute online (it’s secure) or send your check to NKyTribune, 644 Braddock Court, Edgewood, KY 41017.
Familiarize yourself with Who We Are here.
Here’s what NewsMatch has to say about the campaign:
I like the idea of the match of my donation. I read the Trobune almost every day, and would like to support it. However, as long as you continue to carry articles by the despicable bill straub, I will not contribute. It is not just that he writes exclusively from a liberal viewpoint; I am glad to get that perspective, though I am thoroughly conservative. My objection is that he goes out of his way to be nasty and personal to those he disagrees with. And he does it constantly. I will read his trash and get mad; but I will not pay for the privilege. Get rid of him.
We are sorry you feel this way, Mr. Plummer. Bill is a regular columnist and a respected reporter of longstanding, now retired but with a wealth experience. We do not “censor” his regular columns. We do publish responses — which readers have every right to make — and we do publish columnists with different points of view. You have the option of not reading his columns as well. Or writing something more about it, as Mr. Butler did. An open discussion and exchange of points of view is not a bad thing.
In my opinion, Bill Straub, colors the reputation of your newspaper. What stands out is his venom, not what he says are facts. He contributes to the meme “fake news”.
If you want to designate Bill Straub as your editorial writer, then do that. Don’t put him in the mix as a journalist.