(RNS) — As America’s rural weekly newspapers collapse and close at an alarming rate, their owners are desperate to find ways to survive and to keep their communities from becoming “news deserts.”Innovative lifelines for larger dailies — support from nonprofit foundations, direct governmental support, billionaire sugar daddies — are not available to them.
One method that hasn’t been tried, until now, is religion.
In deep red Wyoming, a 135-year-old weekly called the News Letter Journal (circulation 1,500, down from 2,000) is attempting to tap the Christian faith community to help its bottom line. The paper, which serves Weston County from the county seat of Newcastle, about an hour’s drive (in good weather) from Mount Rushmore in neighboring South Dakota, is asking readers to pay $15 a month to become “Faith Partners.”
Faith Partners is the brainchild of Bob Bonnar, the paper’s publisher and part owner, and is at least as much evangelical as financial, he said.
“Those of us who are Christians are called to share the good news of Jesus Christ, that he is our Savior,” he told Religion News Service in an interview from Durango, Colorado, where he now works remotely.
A recent fundraising email to readers was headlined “Partners Wanted.” The paper proclaimed: “We are committed to representing the Christian values …
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One method that hasn’t been tried, until now, is religion.
In deep red Wyoming, a 135-year-old weekly called the News Letter Journal (circulation 1,500, down from 2,000) is attempting to tap the Christian faith community to help its bottom line. The paper, which serves Weston County from the county seat of Newcastle, about an hour’s drive (in good weather) from Mount Rushmore in neighboring South Dakota, is asking readers to pay $15 a month to become “Faith Partners.”
Faith Partners is the brainchild of Bob Bonnar, the paper’s publisher and part owner, and is at least as much evangelical as financial, he said.
“Those of us who are Christians are called to share the good news of Jesus Christ, that he is our Savior,” he told Religion News Service in an interview from Durango, Colorado, where he now works remotely.
A recent fundraising email to readers was headlined “Partners Wanted.” The paper proclaimed: “We are committed to representing the Christian values …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]