DENVER — A nonprofit has created a more affordable printing system to ensure that communities continue to have access to local journalism.
The National Trust for Local News is a nonprofit newspaper company that operates in three states — Colorado, Georgia and Maine — to protect and sustain local news operations of all sizes. It recognized the need for an affordable printing option that could help small community publications continue serving the people who rely on printed journalism.
The nonprofit raised $1 million to purchase a printing press and transport it from Canada to the U.S. Since October 2024, the Trust Press has been printing papers for many publications.
While it was challenging to open the new facility, Amalie Nash, the head of transformation for The National Trust for Local News, said it was crucial to provide access to local printed journalism.
"We have all kinds of things that have come up, but it is really exciting to think about as others have closed," Nash said. "We still see that unmet need, especially with small community publishers being that lifeblood. How can we help solve it?"
Even in the digital world, people still rely on printed news products, but the cost of printing can be very challenging for small publications. That's where The Trust Press comes into the picture.
"Obviously, we're printing our own products more cheaply, and so we're able to offer better rates and senior discounts and all that," said Nash. "But a lot of the publishers, besides reporting personnel, printing and manufacturing is the second highest cost for almost every publisher, and so a lot of these other newspapers are in danger of going out of business. And so we can give them an affordable solution."
Kevin Smalley, the production director of The Trust Press, works alongside his crews to ensure the publications are perfect. Having 35 years of experience in printing, he reflected on the need for local newspapers to stay around.
"It's become very unaffordable for a lot of publishers to continue doing what they're doing and for us. We want to find a more affordable method for them to still be able to maintain publishing a print edition of what they’re doing," said Smalley. "I still feel that a lot of people find that very important to them to have that printed product."
The Rocky Mountain Collegian, a student-run paper out of Colorado State University, is one of the publications being printed at The Trust Press. Peter Waack, the CEO of the Rocky Mountain Student Media Corporation, said it's crucial to have this printing press option.
"Without The Trust Press, it would be really difficult to continue to maintain a weekly print edition," Waack explained. "As people can imagine, we're much like other media companies in that traditional advertising revenue is shifted away from the analog forms, the over-the-air radio, the print products in the newspaper, so it would have been a real struggle for us to even maintain weekly, even monthly, without the huge discount we get from the Trust Press."
The Rocky Mountain Collegian is printed 31 times a year, and since switching to The Trust Press, Waack said they are saving 30 to 40%.
"We anticipate we're going to put about $500,000 in savings back into the ecosystem within a year [that] the publishers would have had to spend on printing and now can be spending on keeping their business afloat, hiring more reporters, those sorts of things," Nash said.
While the printing press is still fairly new, Nash anticipates other publications will seek their support and is hopeful the print platform will continue to reach the communities that rely on it the most.
"There’s a lot of research. We’ve all seen it when local news disappears, people don’t vote as often, people don't run for office, corruption in government, increases tax rates, you know, all this variety of things," Nash explained. "And so I think the printed newspaper — and really news overall — helps to knit the community together and give it sort of that cohesion around understanding what's going on in your community that you don’t get without having news."
In honor of National News Literacy Week (Feb. 3 - Feb. 7), our parent company, E.W. Scripps, is partnering with the News Literacy Project to help teach the public how to separate fact from fiction and stay informed.
Denver7 is committed to making a difference in our community by standing up for what's right, listening, lending a helping hand and following through on promises. See that work in action, in the videos above.