To YachatsNews readers:
There are a lot of worthy organizations peppering you this month for end-of-the-year tax deductible donations. YachatsNews, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, is respectfully joining those groups to see if there’s anything left in your giving budget after donating to your other preferred organizations.
Here’s why. As other media outlets, especially local newspapers, shrink in staff and coverage, we want to expand in 2024 by adding a second full-time reporter.
We’re advertising for the position now. Once hired, we plan to have that reporter cover Lincoln County government, Lincoln County schools and education, housing and homeless issues, and youth, family and social services.
These are critical issues that receive little to no attention currently by local media – including us — in Lincoln County.
The total cost of that reporter – for salary, benefits and other expenses – is nearly $70,000 a year. That would be an additional $70,000 on top of our yearly budget of $81,000 that accounts for our current staff reporter, freelance writers, insurance, fees, licenses, accounting, web services – and all the other expenses that quickly add up for a small (nonprofit) operation.
YachatsNews conducted a local fundraising campaign last June to help finance current operations. We are also endeavoring to increase our revenue by working harder to attract more advertisers and we will seek more foundation grants during funding cycles early next year. And while we are in good financial shape, adding a second reporter will increase our operating expenses significantly. But the YachatsNews board and I think the addition is worth it.
A bit of history for those just discovering our online news site.
YachatsNews started nearly five years ago as a community service project initially focusing on the Yachats and Waldport areas. Its content and readership grew rapidly over the next three years, expanded its coverage areas, became a 501(c)3 nonprofit in October 2022 and hired its first full-time reporter two months later.
The readership of online news sites is measured in “page views.” So far this year – Jan. 1 through Nov. 30 — YachatsNews has had 1.4 million page views, or an average of 127,000 page views a month. No other media in Lincoln County has that kind of readership or reach.
While YachatsNews is certainly far from perfect and not nearly as comprehensive as it wants to be, we strive hard to tell you what is going on with local governments, civic groups and similar organizations, trends, people, art and entertainment events, and of course breaking news through our reporters and local and state news partners.
A decline in rural news
Our work and expansion comes as other media declines, especially in rural areas. That was reinforced this month with a new “state of local news” report from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
The university’s researchers found that more than 130 newspapers in the U.S. have closed or merged so far this year, and the country is on track to lose a third of its papers between 2005 and the end of 2024. Over half of counties in the U.S. have just one or no local news outlets.
The study found that alternative local news outlets, like digital-only sites, ethnic media organizations and public broadcasting stations, tend to be small and clustered around metro areas. That means when communities in less affluent or less densely populated areas lose their local newspaper, they often do not get a replacement.
“It really is still a country of journalism haves and have-nots in a lot of ways,” researchers said. “In a lot of rural and less affluent counties, there just isn’t any local journalism at all.”
Commercial radio in Lincoln County is in a state of flux. Yaquina Bay Broadcasting lost its license for KYTE-FM and its owner’s properties are being auctioned off later this month.
The new owner of the Newport News-Times plans to merge that paper with the Lincoln City News Guard early next year, call it the Lincoln Leader and publish one newspaper once a week. Our hope is that it will be a well-staffed and comprehensive paper. Lincoln County residents deserve all forms of well-functioning media.
But increasingly, readers and listeners are being asked to help pay for what they read or hear.
So, if you choose, here are the ways this month you can help YachatsNews’ efforts to hire that reporter:
- Simply write a check to YachatsNews and drop it in the mail to us at P.O. Box 284, Yachats, Ore. 97498. (Your contribution is tax deductible; please indicate if you want a receipt for your records.)
- Follow this online link to PayPal and make a one-time donation to YachatsNews. Or (like 25 others currently do), sign up via PayPal to make a small ($5-$20) monthly donation and spread your giving over a full year.
Thank you for your readership and support. Our goal for 2024 is to simply do more and better in reporting local news not only of your community but all of Lincoln County.
- Quinton Smith is the editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com
Is there a place I can drop off a cash donation? I prefer Paypal not get a portion destined for you.
Phillip:
A check to PO Box 284, Yachats, Ore. 97498 would be great — or email me at YachatsNews@gmail.com and I can try to set up a meetup time and place.
Thx, Quinton/YachatsNews
Thanks to a fine local publication. It’s a feel-good unifier of our central coast community. My check is in the mail.
I counted four stories in the Dec. 1 issue of the Yachats News that are also local news for Newport yet were completely missing from the Newport News Times, which was recently acquired by Country Media, known for destroying the Coos Bay World a few years back.
When I moved to this area after retiring several years ago, the News Times had two reporters plus a sports reporter. Now they have zero news reporters and just a sports reporter and an incredibly overworked managing editor. And they are about to merge the paper with the News Guard in Lincoln City under another name.
If you want local news, please contribute to the Yachats News. I don’t know why Quinton Smith wants to work his butt off in retirement, but I am thankful that he does. Help him hire another reporter so we know what’s going on in Lincoln County instead of depending on an almost dead newspaper that is filled with nothing but news releases and fails to cover basic local government functions.
I want to update my comment with the December 8 issue of the Yachats News, which leads with the court ruling on county regulation of short-term vacation rental homes.
This has been one of the biggest issues in Lincoln County in recent years. Yet there is not one word about the court ruling in the December 8 issue of the Newport News Times, even though the ruling came out 5 days earlier. The News Times’ new owner, Country Media, seems to think that newspaper can get along without a single news reporter. It cannot and it is not worth reading if they don’t hire one.
If you want local news you need to help the Yachats News, which is dedicated to covering major stories, not just selling ads and printing news releases.