Print journalism is alive and well in Delmarva

Have you ever seen a newspaper press run? Watched the papers coming off the line one after another filled with headlines, content and photos? Picked up a bundle of newly printed papers and just smelled the fresh ink? It’s exhilarating.

Here at Independent Newsmedia Network of Delmarva, our goal is to get our brand of non-partisan, unbiased journalism into as many hands (and mailboxes) as possible, and to that end, I’d like to tell you about what we’ve been up to for the past 12 months.

Year over year, traffic to our website has consistently been up 25%. That does not mean print is out of fashion. We believe there is still a need for local news and new connections to our ever-growing and -changing communities.

So in the fourth quarter of last year, we decided to take a risk. We started the Middletown-Smyrna Independent which was mailed (once a month) to 10,000 homes in the Middletown and Smyrna area for free. We believed that with our brand of journalism, and the support of the business community, we could start a newspaper that was widely read and that allowed us to fund journalism in the area. It worked!

This newspaper was so successful that in February we decided to launch the Greater Dover Independent mailed for free to 10,000 residents in Dover and Camden twice a month.

Then, based on the success of these two papers, and calls from our readers, we launched the Millsboro Long Neck Independent mailed – you guessed it – for free to 10,000 homes in the Millsboro -Long Neck area in May.

In January, we also expanded the distribution of the Milford Chronicle to reach 10,000 mailboxes for free.

That means that every month, we are printing 60,000 free, mailed newspapers.

Advertising in these publications supports our journalism – and significantly help us produce content daily for BaytoBayNews.com and the Daily State News.

In order to accomplish this, we’ve made a significant investment in the newsroom, and as we look ahead to the next fiscal year, we have no plans on slowing down the expansion.

For our subscribers to the Daily State News and BaytoBaynews.com you have likely noticed that we now have significantly more content in the paper (and even more online) on the regular and are also able to focus our efforts on more in-depth regional coverage. This, as well as all of the new puzzles, is by design. We want our subscribers to get the very best of the content running in our free papers as well as legislative, features stories, and a look at our brand new calendar of things to do in our Weekender guide.

Print journalism is alive and well in Delmarva and here at INI we intend to continue reaching the communities in Delaware and Maryland with our unique brand of journalism.

If you have ideas or requests about where we should start a paper next, I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for supporting local journalism!

Konrad LaPrade is publisher of Independent Newsmedia’s Delmarva Group. Email him at klaprade@iniusa.org .