The View doesn’t have so much a business model as a business prayer. Every month, we hope that enough ads are booked, subscriptions taken, and donations received that we can afford to publish the paper. This admittedly not excellent system has lasted 53 years. More than 600 monthly editions, upwards of 100 million pages of material, have been delivered to doors and cafes, grocery stores and distribution racks. Through a dozen and a half U.S. “military interventions” or outright wars, Dotcom booms and busts, a pandemic and six significant earthquakes, one a 7.1 on the Richter scale doozy, the View has delivered its mix of news, features, and photographs, sometimes with cartoons or crossword puzzles thrown in.
Whether or not the View will make it to its 54th anniversary largely depends on you. Despite the heroic efforts of the paper’s marketing manager, Richard Romero, advertising revenues are way down, with more longtime sellers declining to renew – in many cases because they went out of business – than new ones signing up. After receiving spirited support during the pandemic, much of which was passed on to local merchants in the form of substantial ad rate reductions, charitable donations have almost disappeared. While the View prints in the range of 12,000 copies a month, we have roughly 50 paid subscribers. Delivered over the internet or physically the viability of news has been cratered by the adage, why pay for something you can get for free?
The View has survived largely because of its staffs’ willingness to be paid little or nothing for their efforts. I assign and edit all articles, write this monthly column, and generally manage operations essentially as a volunteer. The paper’s production manager hasn’t received a raise from her modest salary in many years; which is to say, ever. Freelance reporters are provided with paltry pay, not nearly enough to support robust investigative pieces. Meanwhile, the cost of the View’s main expense, printing and delivery, has steadily increased.
Despite the lack of pecuniary benefits, we’re collectively dedicated to the View because we believe in the importance of community news, especially in today’s fractured world. And we get joy imagining and sometimes witnessing the smile on a merchant’s or family’s face when they see themselves in an actual paper, one they can send by post to distant relatives, while giving our readers a sense of informed rootedness in a real life, non-cyber space, location. We know that many, including lonely older adults aging in place in an ever-changing neighborhood, look forward to each new issue as if it’s an old friend.
This month the View celebrates more than a half-century of delivering community news. If you’re moved to send us a present – a subscription for a friend, advertisement for a local business or nonprofit, or a straight up donation – we guarantee that it’ll be a gift that keeps on giving. Your support can help us rejoice in this year’s renewal; our business prayers will be answered.
