A local news website is aiming to get back into print for the first time in five years.
The Salford Star was last published as a magazine in autumn 2008 and since 2009, has been an online-only publication.
But editor Stephen Kingston is keen to revive the print version and is holding a fundraising event next month to help bring the idea to fruition.
The event will jointly raise money for the bid to get back into print and to support a local man who suffered severe injuries when he was run over.
A previous bid by the website to secure funds from Salford City Council to get back into print in 2010 was rejected because the authority said it did not meet its criteria.
Stephen said they now needed £7,000 to print one issue of the glossy, full-colour magazine, which would have a print run of 15,000.
He said: “The last one we did was 100 pages and it is three months’ full-time work to get it out with a team of people.
“Hopefully we will publish it before the next local elections in May – that is the aim. We could go with a cheaper version of it but we want to keep the quality going.”
The title will remain as a free publication and Stephen said it would contain stories, features and graphics which worked better in print than online.
A story about the fundraising event said: “The Salford Star is getting squeezed locally and nationally and keeping the publication going has been bloody hard but well worth it, thanks to constant support from the community.
“Only last week, a desperately needed new computer was donated to the Star. And, not a month goes by without a small donation appearing from somewhere.
“We’re at the point now where the print magazine can almost be published again. In the meantime, there’s 2,000 articles on here and many more to come…”
The fundraising event, on the theme of Nineteen Eighty-Four, will also raise funds to keep the website going because of costs like phone lines and petrol, although any donations sent in by the public go directly into the magazine fund.
The website is also celebrating its 2,000th online article since its launch in 2009 and claims its readership has grown from around 4,000 per month then to 32,000 last month.
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Is the ‘bloody hard’ bit the attracting of local businesses to advertise in an online only publication ? Local Media needs to grow the quality and depth of its online offering but ensure it doesn’t overlook that many.many local businesses still want to see their ad in print. In many cases they don’t advertise because they perceive their local paper to be ‘too big’ and ‘too expensive’. Surely its time for local media to make its ad rate structures and packages much more simple to understand (and therefore buy) and to make the rates themselves much more attractive to small local businesses.
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Fundraising event to get it printed?
Words fails me
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No surprise they need donations to keep going, where are the ads on the website?
Perhaps they should make an effort to monetise their online offering, instead of jumping back into print.
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What nonsense – this is doomed to fail.
Who wants a quarterly magazine – not readers and certainly not advertisers? I also love the idea of a ‘fundraising event’ to generate the money to launch a print product – ridiculous!!
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Ooooo, not sure about this one.
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