A local newspaper without the paper.

Why are you only publishing Tuesdays and Thursdays?

Great question. We're building The Raincross Gazette from scratch and we currently only have one writer on the team. A lot happens in Riverside on Tuesdays: City Council meetings, school board meetings, commission meetings, and this list goes on. Our twice a week launch schedule gives us a chance to let you know what's going to happen during the week and then some time to report back on what happened.

We'd like to publish every Sunday through Friday morning, but we'll need paying subscribers to help us staff up to that. We're planning to add Wednesday morning reports from City Hall as soon as we have the capacity; after that we hope to add weekly features (like the ones we used to publish on Made in Riverside), in-depth investigative reports, and regular columns from some of Riverside's key figures.

What's a digitally native newspaper?

It's no secret that the shift from print to digital publishing had a major impact on traditional newspapers. Publishers that built large teams to serve their communities, printed a daily paper, and delivered it to driveways every morning found themselves with ever dwindling budgets as advertisers found new options for reaching consumers. The changing landscape led many independent local publishers to consolidate their teams in an attempt to cut costs. For people like us that has meant ever decreasing quality local news.

We're building The Raincross Gazette as a digital platform which allows us to grow our team, expand our coverage, and publish more content as our subscriber base grows. This aligns our incentives perfectly with those of Riverside residents: we deliver great local news, you tell your neighbors, they subscribe, and then we grow. All we have to do is keep our promise to deliver trustworthy news.

We're launching with email delivery, but we have plans to expand with a full website, multiple podcasts, and video content.

Why should I pay for news?

The internet era has ravaged traditional ad supported publishing. News outlets that rely on advertising to generate revenue are competing against an ever-expanding world of content for your attention and publish sensationalized articles designed for you to click on. Our subscriber funded business model doesn't depend on mass click throughs, but reporting news that's helpful enough for our subscribers to keep paying for it.

Who is behind this project?

We are entrepreneurs in Downtown Riverside, we own a creative company, a brand and communications strategy company, and that axe throwing place you saw during last year's Festival of Lights. We hope to one day employ a team of journalists who studied and trained here at one of our local colleges and universities. Our first hire is a former writer at CBU's campus newspaper, The Banner.