Start spreading the news: Northern Kentucky residents who miss the Recorder newspapers shut down by Gannett in May soon will have a new weekly newspaper.
LINK nky — the digital news site founded by former Cincinnati Edition host Michael Monks and two others a year ago — will launch county-specific weekly print editions called the LINK Reader for Kenton, Boone and Campbell counties on Nov. 18.
It's a local journalism success story for the startup company while Gannett — the nation's largest newspaper group and owner of the Cincinnati Enquirer — continues to struggle. After the shutdown of suburban weeklies in May cut newsroom staffing nationwide, the company last week announced mandatory furloughs, voluntary resignation incentives, temporary suspension of the company's 401(k) matches and a hiring freeze.
"We launched on October 27, 2021, with three people — me, Michael Monks and Mark Collier, who was the publisher of Fort Thomas Matters. We now have 12 full-time permanent staff members, two interns, and 24 contributors," says Lacy Starling, president and CEO of LINK nky.
The "mini-tabloid format" paper for each county is an outgrowth of the past five bi-monthly LINK nky papers, a 32-page paper mailed to 167,000 households.
"We’re taking our bi-monthly format and expanding it — producing in-depth stories, news briefs, sports, arts, and a crossword puzzle and Sudoku — every single week. We’re even bringing back the Kentucky Post’s beloved Town Crier," Starling wrote in a post announcing the new publications.
The same cover story will appear in each edition, but the inside pages will be filled with stories, briefs and other content specific to the county. The new weeklies will have fewer pages and a much smaller circulation for now.
"We will be starting with 16 pages, and will grow as advertising sales allow," Starling says. "We'll be delivering 20,000 issues every week, which will be a combination of paid subscribers and free issues. The free issues will rotate equally around the ZIP codes in NKY, which means everyone in NKY will get a free issue about once every two months, or the same frequency they got the bi-monthly print. It is our way of meeting the mission of getting everyone in NKY the news while keeping our costs in line."
A subscription costs $25 for the first year, and $50 a year after that. Gift subscriptions also are available.
Kentucky law for a "paper of record requires that you have a separate edition for each county where you print and mail," Starling explains. That's why there were separate Boone, Kenton and Campbell County Recorder papers for years.
For Monks, the LINK nky operation is a dream come true. The Covington native started his River City News blog in 2011, and turned it into a digital newspaper/website the next year. He continued to be the reporter/editor/publisher covering his hometown while hosting WVXU's Cincinnati Edition for three years (2019-21). He announced on Oct. 20 last year that he was leaving WVXU for a "new opportunity" involving his River City News site.
"For so many years, I was mostly alone in the old office when it was The River City News. But LINK nky is a full time newsroom committed only to Northern Kentucky, something this region hasn't had in more than 15 years," says Monks, LINK chief content officer.
"I knew we needed something better … I'm so proud of the work here at LINK and the way it's resonating with residents. Our neighbors here truly appreciate what we're doing," Monks says.
Monks and Fort Thomas Matters owner Mark Collier had been friendly competitors for years. Now that they've teamed up, with Collier as chief operating officer, their impact is significantly bigger.
"LINK is certainly built on that decade of work that both Mark and I put in at our smaller organizations, but it's also breaking out to create a voice of its own, one that the region is eagerly listening to," says Monks, a 1998 Scott High School graduate who has worked for WXIX-TV, WLW-AM, WVXU-FM, and WNKR-FM/WNKN-FM, and taught at Ivy Tech Community College in Lawrenceburg.
"In the Greater Cincinnati region, all of the traditional corporate media outlets typically only visit NKY when there's tragedy or controversy or something simple. At LINK, we don't just fly into the community to turn a two-minute news package. We live here, we study our issues, we get to know our neighbors, and most importantly, we truly care about this place. That's why this matters to me," Monks says.
Starling, an entrepreneur and former newspaper reporter, likes to say that they're "giving Northern Kentucky back its voice."
And they're bucking a trend.
"More and more, as local news entities suffer increased cuts, the events of our lives at a local level are nationalized. National issues – whether real or not – are filtered through social media and agenda-driven mass media like talk radio and cable news, all the way to the local conversation," Monks says.
"We are hoping to play a significant role in bucking that trend in Northern Kentucky. The fact that we are a growing local news resource already bucks that trend. But larger than ourselves and this new company, our work must keep people focused on the issues that more directly impact our daily lives, like what's happening at city hall, the school board and Main Street. Our general civic interests are so much more aligned when we calm down and look at what really matters. My goal is to be involved in less chaos, and to tell the stories that matter to my community," Monks says.
But why, in this digital age, are they going old school with a weekly newspaper?
"The answer is simple. Northern Kentucky deserves it," she wrote.
"There are 405,000 people in NKY, and growing. Boone County is the fastest-growing part of the Cincinnati Metro. We have 36 cities in three counties, 17 school districts, nearly two dozen police departments, hundreds of companies employing thousands of people. And Northern Kentucky doesn’t have a regular, weekly print paper that covers the news, sports, arts and entertainment that happen on this side of the river.
"That’s flat wrong, and we’re going to fix it."
LINK nky was founded a year ago to provide NKY news "on whatever form that takes — our paywall-free digital site, our audio products, our live election forums, and now, our weekly newspaper. No matter how you get your news, we’re going to figure out a way to get it to you," Starling says.
"NKY deserves to have its story told, in all forms. The LINK Reader will be the weekly paper that tells that story."
