Ashley Damm, Director of Business Development for The Sun Times News, talks with Dexter Rotary about keeping local news alive in Washtenaw County.
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The Rotary Club of Dexter welcomed Ashley Damm, Director of Business Development for The Sun Times News, accompanied by Publisher Ashley Hiser and Managing Editor Doug Marrin, to our breakfast meeting on March 5. The Ashleys and Doug talked about the rewards and challenges of producing and distributing a local newspaper in our community. Owned by The Really Useful Information Company (TRUIC), the Sun Times News recently increased their weekly circulation from 22,000 to 31,000 papers serving Dexter, Chelsea, Saline, Milan, and west Ann Arbor.
Ashley and Ashley discussed the business of publishing and mailing the newspaper, which costs about $12,000 per weekly issue. Postage and printing are the greatest expenses, and all of their revenue comes from advertising - no subscriptions.
Their lean staff of writers are focused on local news stories, with ambitions to to do more feature and investigative journalism as the paper grows. Doug discussed letters to the editor, which they do publish occasionally. Authors are expected to argue the point but not the person, to provide sources for all their data, and to agree to publish their name. Sounds like the policy aligns nicely with the Four Way Test! Doug shared that he welcomes feedback because one of the hardest parts of his job as editor, is to see the paper through the eyes of the readers.