The owner of the Falls Church News-Press has started a crowdfunding campaign in an attempt to revive the weekly newspaper’s at-home delivery service.
The newspaper, which has been published continuously since 1991, eliminated free at-home delivery in a cost-cutting move earlier this year. Copies can now be picked up via bulk drops at locations across Falls Church and surrounding areas.
“While shifting to delivery to 143 bulk sites in the city and its environs has not led to a significant decline in readership, it has nonetheless affected the impact of the newspaper on the local community,” owner/publisher Nicholas Benton wrote in an Oct. 2 commentary previewing the planned fundraising effort.
An initial goal of $40,000 has been set for the fundraising effort, which was launched yesterday (Thursday). Funding tiers range from $200 to $1,000.
In 2024, Benton toyed with the idea of a reader paywall to bring in revenue, and the paper briefly switched from carrier delivery to the U.S. Postal Service. Both concepts were later abandoned.
Over the past year, Benton has pressed city leaders — in person and in print — to resume more substantial advertisements in the newspaper. He received some support at a recent Council work session, where Council member Laura Downs brought up the idea of using surplus budget funds to purchase at least one full-page ad each week.
In the Thursday edition, the city did take out a full-page advertisement to promote its new organics-recycling initiative.
Benton has also sought a government partnership to promote Falls Church’s growing restaurant scene to residents of surrounding communities like Arlington, Merrifield and Tysons.
To date, that effort has not seemed to resonate with city leaders.
The News-Press is holding on in an economic environment unfavorable to print publications. Across Northern Virginia, many media outlets that were a familiar presence in local homes are either defunct (such as Observer Newspapers in 2010 and the Sun Gazette chain in 2023) or significantly downsized (such as Connection Newspapers).
In August, Loudoun Now, a Leesburg-based community newspaper, announced plans to discontinue its print edition in favor of online-only coverage. In 2024, that publication converted from for-profit to nonprofit status in an effort to bring in tax-deductible donations.
A year ago, Local News Now, the parent of ARLnow and other local news websites, acquired the GazetteLeader newspaper, opting to eliminate its print component and fold staff resources into additional online coverage.
Like most other print-centric entities, the News-Press has an online component. But Benton says retaining print is vital to future operations, in part because of the unique value that he sees in a physical paper:
“The News-Press remains committed most fundamentally to our print product — a tactile, inky newspaper that readers can wrinkle, underline and draw on, fold and stick in a pocket, mull over and quote to a friend or foe, a place where they can read it later, or again and again if necessary, clip and post on a bulletin board or paste into a scrapbook, and ultimately, hang onto and thereby avoid some tyrant’s decision to make stuff disappear by pulling a plug, if it were to come to that.”
“A collective effort, ideally one also supported to a modest extent by local tax dollars, can make it work over the long haul,” Benton wrote of his plan.
The News-Press is the dominant local news outlet for Falls Church residents, but it is not alone. The Falls Church Independent and Falls Church Pulse also provide coverage, and ARLnow covers the city’s government and retail/restaurant scene.
