Gazette to launch free publication for downtown, west side and Manitou Springs
On May 6, The Gazette will launch a new, free, four-day a week newspaper targeted at the city's downtown and west side and Manitou Springs.
The new publication, dubbed Ink, will combine original reporting, readers' stories, news from wire services and from The Gazette, said Jeff Thomas, The Gazette's executive editor.
"This is meant to be a 10-minute publication people can read while they're having a bagel," Thomas said. "The Gazette is going to remain a place where they can get a full course meal of (news) when they want it."
The Gazette covers such a broad area that its advertising is too expensive for many small, local businesses, Gazette publisher Steve Pope said. Ink is a way to scale things down to reach those potential advertisers and develop new markets, he said.
"The Gazette has this huge footprint and only a small portion of it is relevant to a small business," Pope said.
Ink will be available Wednesdays through Saturdays in businesses and at news racks in Manitou Springs, the west side and downtown Colorado Springs.
Kenyon Jordan, publisher of the weekly Westside Pioneer newspaper, said he wondered why The Gazette is devoting resources to a new publication after it recently reduced the size of its daily paper.
"How can The Gazette afford it?" Jordan asked. "They already shortchanged their subscribers by cutting back the size of the paper the subscribers have paid for."
Newspapers across the country have been hit hard by the downturn in advertising caused by the recession combined with a long-term trend toward readers moving online, where advertising rates and profits are much lower than in print. A few papers, including Denver's Rocky Mountain News, have closed down entirely.
"I believe one of the reasons we are struggling as an industry is we have grown to a size where it's impossible for us to offer advertising at rates small businesses can get a decent return on," Pope said.
If Ink is successful, Thomas said, the model may be repeated elsewhere in the region.
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