Getting Our Voice

Hey, folks. It's time for an update on the progress of Operation Local News, a project design to provide Newport-Mesa with a thriving news operation (24/7 online; weekly in print) that's locally owned and operated.

Tom Johnson and I have just finished the legal paperwork to present a private offering to investors. (We are hoping to raise at least $1 million, in $50,000 increments, for the Newport-Mesa Daily Voice). Over the next several weeks, we will be meeting with prospective investors, and hope to get the green light to begin publishing in the summer.

We've got an absolutely amazing product planned, and a business model that will allow our news operation to compete deep into the 21st century. It's all very exciting stuff.

Now we just need to see if we can raise $1 million in this challenging economy; we've already got a nice chunk of informal commitments. We're optimistic, especially after our first few appointments. We'll detail our progress here as soon as we have news worth sharing.

In the meantime, thanks to everyone out there who is cheering for us. We appreciate it.

Good news and good news

We have a lot of good news we'd like to share with you.

1. We've settled on the name of our new news operation. We can reveal it in a few weeks when all the paperwork goes through. You'll LOVE it!

2. We've been meeting with investors in the community, and the response has been very, very positive (even in these times). We'll be continuing our presentations in the coming weeks.

3. Our board of advisors is really pitching in to help make this dream a reality. We have our second meeting March 2.

4. We were approached this week by a top-notch investment attorney who loves newspapers and has offered to help us with all the paperwork at a great discount.

5. We recently met with the Voice of San Diego people who let us into every corner of their business and answered perhaps a million questions (thanks, guys!).

6. We've assembled an amazingly talented leadership team that's ready to go.

7. We're forming some interesting partnerships in the community that we'll reveal soon.

8. We're making ourselves available to speak at community organizations. This week, Tom Johnson talked to the representatives of the various Corona del Mar homeowners associations.

The momentum continues

Just a quick update on Operation Local News, which is sailing along quite nicely. Tom and Bill have asked 30 leaders from across the community to serve on their Board of Advisors, and 29 people have said yes. The first meeting will be in about two weeks.

Tom and Bill also have had several interesting meetings with members of the community who are willing to help in concrete and innovative ways (we'll detail the specifics when we can release them).

Operation Local News has set a tentative deadline of March 1 to decide whether giving Newport-Mesa a quality daily local news operation--similar to the Daily Pilot in its heyday--is something residents and businesses would support with readership, advertising and voluntary donations. So far, it looks more promising than Tom or Bill had imagined, but the goal line is still a ways down the field.

We'll continue to keep you informed.