Our ethos

Tribune Publications publishes local digital newspapers and magazines, each written for one community and for the people who live there. A title is not a general publication that happens to include a town. It begins with the town: its council and school board, its courts and main street, its teams, kitchens, workshops, and gathering places. Everything a title publishes is meant to help the people of that place understand it, see themselves in it, and stay connected to one another.

That connection runs in two directions. Our titles connect a community with itself, so a decision made in a public meeting, a business opening on a familiar street, and a neighbor's achievement become part of one shared record. They also carry that community to readers far beyond it: former residents keeping a thread to home, and people elsewhere who may one day visit, do business, or settle there. A community that is fully seen has a better chance to thrive.

The daily work has two parts. The first is reporting: the events, decisions, filings, and changes that shape ordinary life. The second is attention: featuring the individuals, businesses, and experiences that make a place distinct and might otherwise pass unnoticed. A new shopkeeper, a family marking a milestone, a student with something worth showing off, a maker with a craft worth understanding: these stories belong on the record beside the public business of the town.

This work matters more because local reporting has been thinning for years. Northwestern University's State of Local News report counts more than 3,300 American newspapers closed since 2005, with closures still running at roughly two and a half papers a week. Many communities have lost the habit of a written record, or the record itself. Our titles exist to help fill that void, one community at a time, by publishing steadily and covering the whole life of each place.

Stories reach our titles in three ways. Our editors follow councils, courts, filings, licensing records, and other public records as a matter of routine. Readers use an open tip line and the forms on each title to send tips, story ideas, and submissions of stories and events they want covered. And local residents can get involved themselves as volunteer contributors. Every volunteer is approved by the title's editor, local knowledge is treated as the asset it is, and contributed work is reviewed before it is published.

Each title is produced under an accountable editor. Reporting begins with primary sources: public agendas, records and filings, official data, and our own interviews and outreach. Work is reviewed and verified before publication, and a corrections policy is published on every title. Access is part of the same commitment. Every article on every title is free to read. There is no paywall, and the titles carry no advertising. Each title is a public resource for its community, open to everyone.

A place is never only the thing it is famous for. A resort town is also the people who keep it running in the off season. A farming town is also its school gym, its clinic, and its main street on an ordinary weekday. A city known for one industry is also a hundred other livelihoods, and the families behind every one of them. Our titles cover the whole of that life, in good seasons and hard ones, because that is what a community actually is. Tribune Publications exists to connect communities. That is the whole purpose of every title we publish.