The community has been generously responding to the News Review’s request for donations, and we sincerely thank everyone who was able to contribute. Several donors asked what our funding goal is and how much we have collected. In order to hold us for now and help sustain the paper into the future we have set our goal at $25,000. Contributions we have received thus far total just over half of that, about $12,700, not accounting for credit card and digital payment fees.
News, Not Profit
The News Review, as a worker cooperative, a not-for-profit business from the beginning, plans to continue publishing the paper for many years. This means we maintain a certain financial reserve to weather tough times and continue to provide news for the community during them. For the last few years, we have reached into that reserve to cover the operating cost of publishing a weekly 12-page paper when there is not enough ad income.
Like many print media businesses, we are seeing declining ad revenue. We are working to increase revenue and the generous donations from the community will help us to meet our operating costs this year and bolster our reserves as we work on increasing ad revenue.
To keep a newspaper solvent and printing weekly for 88 years, we cannot overstate how important it is to be prepared. In the mid-1960s, a developer sued the News Review for $2 million for reporting about a city council meeting in which he claimed he was libeled. The paper had simply reported what happened at the meeting. Many readers may know the story of what happened. With perhaps $2,000 in savings, the News Review could not hope to cover the legal expenses, even of a victory. The Washington Post stepped in to ask its lawyers to take the case pro bono. The case eventually went to the Supreme Court where we won in 1970, establishing an important national precedent for freedom of the press. As the Supreme Court decision stated, “The Greenbelt News Review was performing its wholly legitimate function as a community newspaper when it published full reports of these public debates in its news columns. … To permit the infliction of financial liability upon the petitioners for publishing these two news articles would subvert the most fundamental meaning of a free press, protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.” (Greenbelt Co-op. Pub. Ass’n v. Bresler, 398 U.S. 6, 13 (1970))
During the 1970s, as we increased the number of pages in the paper, we needed more than our advertising could cover to pay for those pages and asked our readers for help. That fundraising effort netted $15,000.
Without the support of the Washington Post and the money raised from earlier donation drives, we might not be here today. We are in an uncertain time and cannot predict what new threats may occur. It is more important than ever to make sure that the News Review remains on a firm financial footing to ensure we are still publishing our independent paper at 100 years.
