The Amarillo Tribune | Application Preview
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General Information
Business Registration Number: The Amarillo Tribune
Location: Amarillo, TX, United States
Length of Operation: 1-5
Number of Employees: 1-10 Employees
Annual Gross Income: Less than $100k
Annual Gross Expense: $500k to $1M
Open to Loans: NO
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Funding Usage
The Amarillo Tribune is Amarillo’s first community-supported nonprofit news outlet committed to delivering high-quality, factual, nonpartisan, free, in-depth, digital journalism to the Amarillo community. The Amarillo Tribune’s primary mission is to earn the Amarillo community’s trust by diving deep into the issues we face, providing insightful coverage that serves the overall public interest, cultivates civic engagement and reflects the community’s sense of self. The Amarillo Tribune exists to empower community members with the information they need to be self-governing and free. We believe that we can work to ensure a prosperous future for our community, region and beyond by virtue of better informed and more engaged citizens. The Amarillo Tribune believes in contributing to that vision by following our guiding principles to seek and report truth, act independently, offer transparency, operate with unwavering commitment to ethical standards, and prioritize service to our community. This funding would provide salaries for one year for two journalists ($50,000 each) who are committed to public service journalism, and will produce content that helps us achieve our mission and vision.
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Business Plan
As the Amarillo Tribune works to establish itself as the Amarillo community's most trusted news source, we plan to add more positions to help sustain the community-service journalism we will produce. In two years, we plan to expand to a full-scale model which will empower our organization to expand to other communities in the Texas Panhandle which are considered news deserts. The budget for the full-scale model is: ONE YEAR OPERATING COST $2,127,200 EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP $200,000 Executive Director $200,000 BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT $285,000 HR and Accounting Manager $75,000 Director of Business Development $90,000 Sponsorship and Marketing Manager $75,000 Marketing and Communications Coordinator $45,000 EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT $760,000 Editor in Chief $150,000 Managing Editor $90,000 Senior Editor $70,000 4 reporters assigned to a city council district (Salary: $65,000 per reporter) $260,000 2 investigative reporters covering enterprise stories (Salary: $65,000 per reporter) $130,000 1 photojournalist $60,000 AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT & MEMBERSHIP DEPARTMENT $315,000 Director of Audience Development $90,000 Audience Development Editor (newsletter writing, social, SEO and web editing) $65,000 Web producer (story production, newsletter products, lead generation) $50,000 Membership and Community Engagement Manager $60,000 Community Engagement and Events Coordinator $50,000 OVERHEAD AND ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS (20%) $367,200 Employee Overhead and Admin (at 15%) $234,000 Website and Software (Newspack, Adobe Suite, Hub tech) $40,400 Macbooks (20 total) $40,000 Rent $48,000 Wifi $4,800 A trustworthy source for high-quality, factual, nonpartisan, free, in-depth, digital journalism in Amarillo, Texas is desperately needed. The legacy newspaper has all but folded, which has left Amarillo, the largest regional city in the Texas Panhandle dependent on its broadcast networks for news coverage. Although those broadcast networks have a role in educating, informing, and engaging the public, they are insufficient in providing in-depth coverage to hold power to account, investigating, and amplifying diverse voices in our community. The Amarillo Tribune believes that our community deserves and requires a robust local news ecosystem to re-engage civic participation and restore the critical function of journalism in our community by acting independently, offering transparency, operating with unwavering commitment to ethical standards, and the relentless pursuit of service to our community. We are dedicated to providing this service to our community.
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Self Identified Competition
Our top three competitors are the websites of the three traditional broadcast news networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC. Market research conducted in Amarillo by the national organization News Revenue Hub in 2023 found broadcast channels are trusted more than digital or print media. Please note, the Amarillo Tribune will launch completely in summer of 2024, and was not established during this market research. There are no other nonprofit, community supported journalism outlets in the Amarillo community, or serving the greater Texas Panhandle region. Traditional corporate news systems are becoming more desperate, commodifying people, and sacrificing their commitment to integrity and transparency for the sake of likability. In contrast, the Amarillo Tribune's non-profit news model is the next great hope for informing, empowering, and engaging with community members through information. The new and unparalleled concept of a non-profit model for news in the Amarillo area provides interminable opportunities for renewed engagement of readers in every corner of our community.
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Contact Applicant
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