Peter Rice was frustrated that the local news industry wasn’t keeping up with the digital age, so he decided to prove that new business models were viable – and he has with his profitable local newsletter.
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RSSPeter Rice started has been involved in journalism since he was a teenager working the State House in Washington State. He spent the early part of his career working for local radio stations and newspapers in Oregon, Colorado and New Mexico.
As the early 2000’s progressed and the internet age accelerated, Peter became more aware of the downward slope that the journalism industry was taking and left the field for a few years out of frustration.
He couldn’t stay away forever, and eventually Peter decided that he would prove that quality local journalism could also be a sustainable business model, and founded Downtown Albuquerque News (DAN) to serve his own neighborhood.
DAN is a for-profit, subscription only high paywall local newsletter serving the downtown district of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Peter has bootstrapped DAN from the ground up, and it has grown into a full time endeavor since launch.
On this episode of Small Press, Big Ideas, Peter and I discuss the ethos of DAN -“people you know, things you can walk to” – and how local journalism doesn’t need to establish relevance, unlike larger main stream outlets.
We discuss DAN’s business model, why Peter chooses to run 0 ads, and why he thinks that such simplicity is such an asset.
We talk about what other kinds of communities could theoretically support similar publications to DAN, and some thoughts on what areas may not work for a similar publication, and a whole lot more.
Please have a listen to the full episode to hear all of this and more. You can find Small Press, Big Ideas wherever podcasts are found, or simply click play on the player above.