Maybe interesting?

The Spokane newspaper is turning itself into a nonprofit, operated by a foundation that is basically its editor. For more than a century the Cowles family owned the newspaper, downtown, and the “city” “government”.

The nonprofit is supposedly divorced from Cowles. If this article can be believed, the nonprofit is a business, not a charity. Nonprofit status simply opens up some funding options that wouldn’t work for a nominally profit-making corporation. Most of the operating money will come from subscriptions, not advertising or donors. Allegedly the donors are firewalled by a blind trust arrangement.

Seems to be pretty well organized, already transitioning into the new form. What makes it interesting is that Nieman Lab hasn’t featured or saluted it. That’s a good sign. Nieman only notices reliable Dem screechers. If Nieman doesn’t feature an effort, it might be slightly legitimate.

I don’t have any particular reason to subscribe. I get local news from the Spokane News facebook page, which covers immediate things like crime, drug overdoses and power outages. Recently I’ve looked at the Spokesman website a few times and didn’t see anything annoying, which is also interesting in the same negative way.

When I moved here in 1990, I was accustomed to fairly competent city governments and readable local papers, in Oklahoma and later in Pennsylvania. I quickly figured out that the Cowles “city” “government” was NOT competent. Since 2010 it’s been both incompetent and crazy. I subscribed to the paper at first, operating on the old assumption. I soon figured out that the other Cowles property was hateful and arrogant, constantly mocking the local Deplorables and celebrating the worst sort of “progressive” nonsense. I don’t pay to be mocked and bullied, so I stopped subscribing.

The supposedly new management will have to sell itself. If it starts distributing a free weekly shoppers thingamajig, I’ll willingly sample the product and see how it runs. If it mocks, it’s gone. If it entertains and offers a bit of pleasure, I might pay. I used to enjoy print papers, more for the features than the articles.