For years, American communities have made heroic efforts to save local shops in the face of voracious chain and big-box stores and e-commerce bullies such as Amazon. That’s why you’ve heard calls to “buy local” and “shop local” so much, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed even more small businesses to close. So it’s a natural extension of that movement for local news publishers to get creative with their ownership structures to stave off buyouts from extractive hedge fund owners, and ask the community to support them as truly local businesses.
That’s the force driving publishers to create journalist-owned companies (Defector, Racket), public benefit corporations (Colorado Sun, Lookout Santa Cruz) and cooperatives (The Devil Strip, Mendocino Voice).
