Letter from the Publisher

Dear Ocala/Marion residents,

The Ocala Gazette newspaper is at a crossroads.

When we started four years ago, our goal was to keep our community connected but also deliver in-depth reporting that the other local news outlets didn’t have the guts to touch. We feel that is the type of information that keeps the power with the people so that they can hold the government accountable.

At this crossroads, we have some hard choices to make about how we continue.

Initially, we hoped to have enough ad revenue and paid subscribers to keep digital news free to remove barriers for those wanting to be engaged with their community, but at a disadvantage.

Unfortunately, the revenue generated thus far is not enough to sustain us.

We are not the only local newsroom facing this dilemma. Even larger communities are losing their local news teams.

However, some communities are acknowledging the need to prop up the vital work of local journalism through community initiatives and philanthropic giving.

Recently, in Chicago, a community trust was set up to support Chicago’s news ecosystem. The initiative, called “Press Forward Chicago” is Chicago’s local affiliate of the national Press Forward movement by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The MacArthur Foundation is taking a leading role in raising unprecedented resources to revitalize local news. The goal was to create a fund with the support of civic-minded individuals, philanthropic leaders, and other foundations interested in fostering stronger, economically stable new organizations that can serve the information needs of their communities and that will inspire more residents to participate in civic life.

Communities across the country are taking advantage of the new nationwide initiative and starting local Press Forward chapters to bring the resources to their communities. In a relatively short time, Chicago has announced an impressive 1.6 million in grants to 13 local Chicago news outlets.

We’d love to see our community do something similar, but until that supportive relief comes, we have to take measures to continue what we are doing.

On average, 60,000 people read our digital news monthly. Many of those visitors visit our website many times over the course of the month. However, less than one percent of those readers are paid subscribers.

We have made the hard decision to try to obtain support from our readers by putting up a paywall- requiring a token amount to read our most recent stories published for the first ten days. For the time being, we will continue to leave our archives without a paywall. This change will be implemented this month.

We are also renewing our request for donations through the Florida Press Foundation (bit.ly/3xIxwoq); and ask for advertising business.

We hope you will choose to support our kind of journalism so that we can continue working hard for you.

Thank you.

Jennifer Hunt Murty

Publisher