Inside LINK is a regular column from our CEO, Lacy Starling. If you have questions you’d like Lacy to answer, email her at lacy@linknky.com.
LINK nky opened its doors two years ago with a clear mission: Give a voice to our community and tell the stories that matter.
Since Oct. 27, 2021, we’ve:
- Written nearly 8,600 stories.
- Printed and delivered more than 1.6 million newspapers.
- Recorded over 400 podcast episodes.
- Sent almost 500 email newsletters.
- Covered nearly 1,500 high school and college sporting events.
- Reported on every contested local election.
And we’ve done it all because we believe Northern Kentucky’s stories need to be told.
Just think: Two years ago, a fraction of that was happening in NKY. Very few of these stories – the ones our reporters and editors have worked so hard on – would have been told. Those stories are important to our community for many reasons. They’re important for bringing to light the issues that matter and helping residents of NKY make decisions about how they want their community to operate in the future.
They are also important for bringing our community together around the fun stuff – sports and arts and restaurant openings and events. Newspapers have traditionally been the way communities tell their stories, and we very much identify as a community newspaper.
LINK also helped bring Kentucky to the cutting edge of public notice laws, allowing Northern Kentucky governments and other entities to publish public notices digitally on news sites instead of in the physical paper, which saves taxpayers money and keeps the wheels of government turning at a pace that works for everyone. We’re proud to be NKY’s paper of record.
It has been a remarkable two years. LINK has grown so much faster than I ever expected it to. (And I wrote the business plan.) We have 14 full-time staffers and dozens more contributors in the field. We print a weekly newspaper – definitely not part of the original business plan – and we’re continually striving to tell stories in new and innovative ways.
Most remarkable, I think, is that we’ve managed to do this without a paywall. Our digital content is free to anyone with an internet connection, and our print paper is only $25 a year (plus tax), and is available all the local libraries, so people can read it for free there, too.
Our mission was to ensure that everyone in NKY could get the information they needed, regardless of their ability to pay for it. So far, we’ve managed to do that.
Now for the truth: We can’t keep doing the work we’re doing, and keep it free for everyone, unless we have your support.
Running LINK nky costs about $1.5 million a year. And that’s not because we spend money on expensive furniture or fancy office supplies. (Most of the time, we are lucky to have pens in the office.) It’s because good journalism is a labor-intensive undertaking, and that costs money.
Over the next month in this space, I’ll be breaking those costs and our revenue sources down for you, but for today, suffice it to say we cannot continue to operate at this level and keep our content free for those who can’t afford to pay for it unless we get some help from those of you who can afford to help out.
If you find value in our reporting, and you’d like to support the work, please click here to donate today. All donations to the NKY Community Journalism Fund are tax-deductible and can only be used to support public-interest journalism. That means our county beat reporters and contributors, our Frankfort correspondent, our business reporter, and our two news editors.
Even better, LINK has received a Challenge Grant of $75,000 that will match any donations made right now. In order to get the full $75,000 of the challenge grant, we have to raise an additional $75,000, so every donation, big or small, helps.
We love what we do, and we hope you do, too. If you do love it, consider a donation to help pay for it. Think of it as a great birthday present for your favorite local news organization.
