[continued from previous message]   
      
   attractive package for advertisers who want the maximum number of eyeballs   
   for their dollars. While that effort didn’t translate to advertisers   
   writing bigger checks, Saslow said he isn’t giving up his goal of finding   
   a formula that makes local journalism financially stable. As early as   
   2025, he said, he’d like to return to Southern Oregon with a new venture   
   that ties together local and national issues in a way that could be a   
   single stop for readers inundated with information.   
      
   “You’ve got to have this mix of everything that would affect a person’s   
   life,” Saslow said. “There’s going to be a breakthrough where somebody   
   basically is able to evolve news to something that is completely   
   different.”   
      
   The future of local journalism in Oregon likely depends on whether its   
   decadeslong retrenchment continues under the growing pressures of Silicon   
   Valley’s push into artificial intelligence, or if the remaining media   
   outlets in the state can convince their readers that human-verified   
   information is a necessity. Ashland.news, the digital startup led by   
   Etling, is taking some decidedly old-school approaches to help his   
   publication. Even as his reporters are competing with social media posts   
   from the zombified Daily Tidings, Etling said he is constantly thinking   
   about how he can prove to the people living in the Rogue Valley that local   
   journalism is worth saving.   
      
   “People had it easy with the subsidized newspaper,” he said. “It was   
   subsidized by capitalism-assisted democracy — by selling sofas and   
   mattresses on the pages of your newspaper and making it really cheap to   
   get. That’s gone away, and it’s not coming back.”   
      
   Etling doesn’t know what will replace journalism’s long dead revenue   
   sources of classified advertisements and public notices, but he believes   
   the nonprofit model Ashland.news follows — one built on giving well-   
   reported local stories to a local audience — could hold some clues.   
      
   Rather than chasing profits, the company has tried to offer its readers a   
   simple value proposition: We live here, and we want to tell you stories   
   about this community.   
      
   Ashland.news doesn’t have billions of dollars in venture capital behind it   
   like the largest artificial intelligence companies, but it does have an   
   edge those companies don’t have: people who live in the community they’re   
   covering. This year, the outlet’s staff marched in the Fourth of July   
   parade. The response surprised Etling.   
      
   “People were hollering out, ‘We love Ashland News!’ and ‘Thank you!’” he   
   said. “It was really gratifying.”   
      
   The company also recently sent a print edition — a surprising move for a   
   digital outlet — to 17,000 mailboxes in Ashland and nearby Talent as   
   another way to reach people who may not know their local journalism is at   
   risk of going away.   
      
   Those curated appeals to local readers may be working, too. Etling   
   estimates Ashland.news has around 4,750 newsletter subscribers — more than   
   three times the number of people who subscribed to the Daily Tidings when   
   he was editor.   
      
   https://www.opb.org/article/2024/12/09/artificial-intelligence-local-news-   
   oregon-ashland/   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)