Inside LINK is a weekly column from our CEO, Lacy Starling. If you have questions you’d like Lacy to answer, email her at lacy@linknky.com.
It is hard for me to believe this, but it has been six months since we launched LINK nky. On Oct. 27 of last year, we joined the OneNKY Alliance for their annual summit, and announced to the community that we’d acquired Fort Thomas Matters and the River City News, and were going to be operating the largest, most robust news organization in the NKY Metro.
Many people thought we were crazy to launch a news organization in 2021. Their reasons were valid—media companies seem to announce staff cuts every day, the political and social environment can be incredibly toxic, no one advertises in print anymore, etc.—but we believed we could do it.
Six months in, looking back on all we’ve accomplished, I can say two things: We did it. We launched a news organization and it is working. But also – they were right. We were crazy. And being crazy was the only thing that made it work.
The last six months (and I know Michael and Mark will agree with me on this) have been the fastest, nuttiest, and most rewarding six months of our lives. If you are on the outside, consuming only one or two of our products, it might seem a little dramatic to say that. But seen in totality, what we’ve accomplished with a shoestring budget and a tiny staff is nothing short of astonishing. Here’s the full list of everything we’ve launched in six months:
- The Daily Link – our first product, our daily news roundup email. (If you haven’t already, sign up now!)
- Frankfort LINK – We sent Mark Payne, our intrepid government and politics reporter, to live in Frankfort for the entire legislative session and cover our caucus on the ground.
- LINKnky.com – On Feb. 15, we launched our new online home, bringing together RCN and FTM, along with audio and video content. Since launch, we’ve published more than 1500 news articles, exclusively about NKY—a depth of coverage you won’t find anywhere else.
- The Kentucky Side Podcast – We have an incredible talent on our team in Michael Monks, and we wanted to show that off with a long-form, well-produced podcast. It is available wherever you listen to podcasts.
- Frankfort LINK Live video series – Thursday nights on our Facebook page became appointment viewing, with Michael and Mark Payne interviewing legislators, lobbyists, and the movers and shakers affecting decisions in Frankfort.
- LINK Reader – Our first print edition hit mailboxes at the end of February, bringing news and information to 164,000 households in NKY simultaneously. The second issue drops next week, and I’m so excited for y’all to see it.
And if that’s not enough, we also hired 10 people and onboarded another dozen or so contributors (with all the administrative and legal work that requires), sold enough sponsorships and advertising to support our operations, gutted and redecorated our office in downtown Covington, and set up the NKY Community Journalism Fund with our fiscal sponsor, Horizon Community Funds of Northern Kentucky.
Needless to say, we didn’t sleep much, and our families deserve a lot of credit for picking up the slack when we were working 15-hour days, seven days a week. But to the credit of the team, no one complained. (Okay, we complained a little when we had to launch the website and the first print edition simultaneously, but that was it.)
I believe in celebrating our wins, and we have a LOT of wins to celebrate. But we’re still in our infancy, and it is going to take more than six months to prove that our business model works, that we are living up to our mission, and that we bring value to the community in which live. Stay tuned for what’s coming next and, as always, send us your feedback so we can get better.
