North county has a new paper

Published 10:37 pm Sunday, September 23, 2007

At a time when some of the nation’s largest newspapers are struggling to keep readers and make money, it seems counter intuitive to launch a new newspaper.

But that’s what a trio of women in Marysville have done. Individuals also are trying to get newspapers off the ground in Granite Falls and Darrington.

As it turns out, local newspapers can still be a good business, a fact underscored by Sound Publishing’s acquisition of the Marysville Globe and Arlington Times weekly newspapers this summer.

The North County Outlook, which published for the first time Sept. 14, will cover much of the same territory as those two established weeklies. But Beckye Randall, the Outlook’s publisher and editor, said the new publication is consciously trying to strike a slightly different tone.

“When we first started talking about this, we wanted to focus on the people, those who live and work in north Snohomish County,” she said, adding the twice-a-month frequency lends itself more to feature stories and news that’s not urgent.

She said she wants an optimistic tone, though “it doesn’t mean we’re going to sugarcoat things.”

Randall has done newsletters and other writing in the her past and recently finished a bachelor’s degree in communications. When she was laid off from Verizon, she contacted Sue Stevenson, co-owner of Marysville Travel &Cruise, to use her as a reference in her job search.

Stevenson, who had just left the Marysville Globe, suggested the two talk about launching a new newspaper. Lynn Dye, the other co-owner of the travel agency, also got involved and “all the pieces came together,” she said. Randall and the newspaper’s staff work in the back of the travel agency’s office space.

The women said they got a favorable response when they went out to sell advertising for the new paper, which was mailed out free to about 26,000 homes and businesses in and around Marysville and Arlington. Another 1,000 were sent to newsstands. They hope to eventually increase their publication schedule to once a week.

Bill Will, general manager of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association, said newspapers, like any other startup business, are more likely to launch in a region with population growth and a healthy economy. Additionally, it’s a business that can be profitable at a local level. “Community newspapers are relatively healthy,” he said.

He admitted it’s rare to have weekly newspapers competing, which could be the case in Marysville and Arlington if the Outlook expands, but it’s not unprecedented. Locally, weekly newspapers – including the Enterprise weeklies owned by the Daily Herald Co. – compete in Edmonds, Mill Creek and other south Snohomish County communities.

That’s not the case in Granite Falls, the town of about 3,000 people east of Lake Stevens. While the Lake Stevens Journal endeavors to cover news there, it’s been without a weekly for several years, said Ken Robinson, publisher and editor of the Monroe Monitor &Valley News. He’s trying to change that. “The town of Granite has changed and is changing, and the people there had a hunger for their own newspaper,” he said.

Later this week, the first edition of the revived Granite Falls Press is scheduled to be mailed out to households and businesses and around that city. The paper will begin as a monthly but could grow more frequent if the support is there, he said.

That’s the plan for the yet-to-be-named newspaper in Darrington. Jim Greenizer, whose family operates Surefit Fitness Center, Mountain Sports Pizza and a couple other local businesses, said he hopes the first edition will be out by early October. He and editor Julie Engleman said they hope to mail it out directly to about 1,200 households and businesses there.

Greenizer said he’s also received much community and business interest in the newspaper, which he hopes to have named through a reader contest. Engleman, who has a business background, said they’re hoping it’s well embraced by the community, where it’s sometimes difficult to get community news well distributed at present.

“We’re definitely doing a project we don’t know much about, but we have the heart to put it out,” she said.

Dave Pinkham, publisher and editor of the Stanwood/Camano News and president of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association, said he’s encouraged to see new independent papers starting. He said his publication keeps growing, and most of the small papers that make up the newspaper association’s membership seem to be doing fine.

But the business is changing, he said. Even community weeklies are spending more effort to produce good Web sites these days to recruit new readers. And, as Sound Publishing’s expansion in the region attests, even many small newspapers are now owned by big chains instead of local publishers.

He added the new local papers will have challenges to overcome. The Outlook is going against an established weekly in Marysville, while gaining enough advertising to run a newspaper could be challenging in places like Darrington and Granite Falls. “If your town is too small, then it’s difficult to make it profitable,” Pinkham said. “It will be interesting to see how that plays out.”

The women behind the North County Outlook said they began planning before Sound Publishing, which has aggressively bought and started new weekly newspapers in King County and bought out the Marysville Globe and Arlington Times. But they don’t profess any worry about the competition.

“There’s enough room out there for everybody,” Stevenson said. “We happen to be in a position here where there’s so much growth.”

Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.