New Platform Aims to Revive Local News Where Newspapers Have Vanished

Across the country, small and mid-sized towns have watched their local newspapers shrink, merge, or disappear entirely, leaving residents without a reliable source for school board decisions, zoning fights, high school sports scores, or the small, human stories that make up a community. A new platform, My Local Press, is positioning itself as an answer to that gap, built specifically to support independent journalists and give community reporting a place to live and grow.

The platform's core mission is straightforward: make it possible for local journalism to exist as a livelihood again, even in places where traditional newsrooms have closed their doors. Rather than requiring reporters to build their own websites, payment systems, and audiences from scratch, My Local Press offers a ready-made network where a journalist can publish a story, build a readership, and get paid directly by the community they serve.

Central to that effort is a direct-support model that lets readers and local businesses back individual journalists and publications. According to the platform, the large majority of every payment made through the site — support contributions, reader subscriptions, and advertising — goes straight to the journalist or publication doing the work, with a small share going toward keeping the platform itself running.

My Local Press also emphasizes editorial independence. Journalists publish under their own name or their own publication's banner, retain their own standing pages for policies and contact information, and can build a dedicated audience through an RSS feed, a custom domain, or a newsletter. The platform describes this as a way of protecting freedom of the press at the local level: giving reporters ownership over their work and their relationship with readers, rather than routing coverage through a single corporate outlet.

To maintain trust and accountability in a network built on citizen and professional journalism alike, My Local Press uses a vouching system. New contributors are vouched for by people already established on the platform, whether that's an invitation from a publication's team or a direct vouch from someone already active in the community. The platform frames this as a way to keep quality and credibility high while still lowering the barrier for new, independent voices to get started.

The effort comes at a moment when local news deserts — towns and counties with little or no dedicated local coverage — have become increasingly common. By giving independent journalists and small publications the tools to launch quickly, reach readers directly, and earn a sustainable income, My Local Press is betting that community journalism can be rebuilt from the ground up, one town and one reporter at a time.