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Editor goes up against old newspaper with launch of new print title

A former regional editor has gone head-to-head with the newspaper she used to run after launching a new print title.

Kathy Bailes, who edited the Isle of Thanet Gazette between January 2015 and July 2016, has announced the launch of a print version of the Isle of Thanet News.

Kathy founded the News, initially a digital-only operation, after leaving Reach plc predecessor Trinity Mirror last year.

At the time of her departure, she was a content editor for the company’s Kent Live news website.

Isle of Thanet News co-owners Jodie Nesling, left, and Kathy Bailes

Isle of Thanet News co-owners Jodie Nesling, left, and Kathy Bailes

Kathy will run the reverse publishing venture with former Gazette reporter Jodie Nesling, who has taken up the role of News co-owner.

The paper will include news features, leisure, sport and schools information, while its sister site will continue to deliver breaking news and a wide range of articles covering, council meetings, crime, school news, leisure and sport.

The first edition of the free, monthly news will have a print run of 6,000, with plans to take that to 10,000 by February.

It will be distributed from from dozens of Thanet venues, including supermarkets and micropubs.

Kathy told HTFP: “We are both really excited to be launching our first print edition. We realise it could be seen as going against today’s trend but feel there is a market for a truly local printed paper which combines news features with leisure, sports and more.

“The first deliveries had to be restocked by the evening and the feedback so far has been great.

“We had two really impressive designers working on the pages and have had an enormous amount of support from readers, advertisers and contributors.”

4 comments

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  • December 5, 2018 at 10:18 am
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    Good luck ladies, great to see this type of launch.

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  • December 5, 2018 at 10:27 am
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    Good news for the people of the area and good luck to the team involved.
    Hopefully they have a good commercial person on board and they’re not relying on friends, goodwill and ‘supportive’ adverts for the first few issues, sustainable revenue to fund the operation long term is key and without it so many start ups, with good intent and good content,fail.
    This type of independent community new publication which has spotted a gap in the market really is the future.

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  • December 5, 2018 at 11:24 am
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    Thank you. We have had loyal advertisers on the website since March 2017 and many of those, plus some new advertisers, have also joined us in print. We hope this will grow.

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  • December 6, 2018 at 10:30 am
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    Well done both of you. I really hope it’s a huge success. This is the way forward – as it was for a lot of small start up titles in the hey-day of print.

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