From Gossips to a Small town paper; Challenges of survival

Originating from country where having access to newspaper is a matter of luxury, it was exhilarating to learn that independent newspaper existed in a village of USA. It was more fascinating to learn that the paper’s history was longer than that of the place.

Nestled among the foothills of beautiful Mt. Rainier, Eatonville enjoys a small town charm and distinctive

natural beauty. The paper has a long standing history like the Mt. Rainier. The Eatonville Dispatch has been the voice of South Pierce County since 1893. While, the town of Eatonville was incorporated in 1909.

Our team was lucky to meet the three full time staffs of The Dispatch who are struggling hard to get the paper going. We were able to hear the stories from persons who were involved in the editorial, marketing and the office operation.

The current editor shared about the challenges of transforming the paper from the local Gossip paper to objective paper. It was interesting to learn how the paper had a surviving history of more than 121 years though it was a gossip paper. It was also interesting to learn how ‘gossip’ sales throughout the world.

The experience from the marketing personnel of the paper who faces trouble convincing the advertisers about the tangible changes in the sales was very familiar to what I hear in my home country. It was amazing to know despite that, there are several local business that still advertise.

The revenue model of the paper was new for me. The paper is owned by the law firm which has taken ownership of similar local newspaper from the other parts of the state to publish the legal notices. I never see such sight back at home. It was good to know that legal notices make a good business for the paper.

It was also exciting to learn that how doing journalism in a small-town paper is difficult. People know every other person of the town personally and it becomes hard to write about the person whom we know personally.

It was also wonderful to see 1000 subscribers of the paper in a town which has around 2,815 residents. It was also insightful to learn that the majority of these subscribers are people from the older generation who actually grew up with the paper.

Like all the papers around the world it was good to learn that the paper has its unique strategies to cope up with the changing media landscape and increase its young readership.