The Dewsbury & District Press, launched four months ago, is popular with both readers and advertisers, according to publisher Danny Lockwood.

The former Dewsbury Reporter and Lancaster Guardian editor says he is pleased with the how the newspaper has performed, and it remains in profit – despite hostility from local rivals.

He said: “Our reputation is building every week. We’ve had some phenomenal news stories and exclusives and a great response from readers.”

The paper’s mixed paid-for and free distribution is also helping to satisfy advertisers, he said.

After paid-for editions hit the shops on a Friday, the paper is distributed to targeted areas later in the week as a free sheet.

Danny said: “We’re getting our newspaper into more homes than any of our rivals and to customers who don’t receive any other local newspaper – and advertisers love this.

“Our paid-for sales, which are currently around 3,000 copies a week, are building and we also distribute up to 10,000 free copies a week.

“If an advertiser wants to target a particular area we have the flexibility to do that.”

The paper has a staff of five full-time and two part-time journalists, who also do their own digital photography – an arrangement that Danny says is working well.

And in a departure from the normal set-up, all the journalists are on bonuses and profit sharing, in addition to their salaries.

Danny knows the circulation area well, living in Dewsbury and having started at the Reporter as a trainee in 1978.

He has since subbed at the Yorkshire Post, been a reporter at the Yorkshire Evening Post, become editor-in-chief of the Reporter Group, edited the Gazette series in Gloucestershire, edited the Lancaster Guardian and run Newspost Media Services. He is also secretary of the Yorkshire region Society of Editors.

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