Join the local news revolution!

I’ve got to tell you, last week was a gas!

It didn’t start out that well. Bill Lobdell, my business partner, and I had seen our quest at trying to start a new community newspaper or buying the bankrupt Daily Pilot pretty much dashed.

Turns out, during the biggest recession since the Great Depression, money for investing was a little tight. The dream was over.

And then a light went on. So what if we didn’t have any investor money? So what if we haven’t made any money since we respectively left the Daily Pilot and the Los Angeles Times last August? So what we don’t have some huge staff and a healthy budget?

What we do have is a total commitment to this community, some talent and a lot of experience. Plus, we’re surrounded by a group of people totally onboard with a project that brings a new, complete, local news source to Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.

We launched our website in 48 hours, and it’s been quite a ride. We’ve had advertising offers (we still need to figure out how to put ads on the pages!), story pitches and people volunteering to be columnists and reporters.

This is all great news. Bill and I have put a combined 27 years into making the Daily Pilot one of the best community newspapers in the state. Over the past year, the people who run the Pilot—marketing people at the bankrupt Los Angeles Times, 50 miles up the road—seem hell-bent on ruining our community's newspaper.

The folks who remain at the Pilot perform a daily miracle in even getting the newspaper out. But it seems to us that the evidence is overwhelming that Pilot’s future is bleak. That’s the reason why we tried hard to buy it in bankruptcy court. It requires tender, loving care. It demands people with passion running it. It needs its mojo back.

We’re recreating the Pilot's forgotten mojo with the Daily Voice. And here’s how you can help.

1. We want to deputize a small army of citizen-journalists to help us cover the community. Call us if you’re interested. It will be fun.
2. We’d love to have a flood of story tips coming in. Again, please be our eyes and ears.
3. If you have a business looking for a cost-effective way to get your message in front of a wildly devoted local audience, let us know. We’ll cut you a great deal.
4. You can join the local news revolution simply by spreading the word and telling your friends to bookmark this page and visit often.

In return, we'll make you several guarantees.

1. We’ll deliver local news smartly and with passion.
2. We’ll be incredibly active in the community. No one will out work us.
3. We’ll try to get better each day.
4. We’ll never bore you.

Let’s enjoy the ride together. If you need me, write this down, I’m at tjohnson.jlm@gmail.com and my cell number and direct line is 949.244.2583. I hope to hear from you.

A local news operation is born

Ten months ago I walked out the doors of the Daily Pilot. For me it was a sad day. I guess I had always kind of figured that someday they’d just find me slumped over in the chair in my office and that would be it. Not a bad way to go.

In the following weeks and months, I took up residence in a small office 50 feet from the back door of the Goat Hill Tavern. You’ll recognize some of the names of my new office mates: Bill Lobdell, author and former editor for the Daily Pilot; Lana Johnson, the former promotions director for the Daily Pilot; Ron Katzman and Janet Vinograd, two of the best sales reps. ever at the Daily Pilot.

While some of them toiled in a successful web business called Greer’s OC, the bigger question for me and others was “What’s next? Where’s the income stream?”

Some people called from the community and suggested a return to the Pilot. Others pleaded with us to start a new, even better newspaper.

We looked and considered pretty much everything.

As our search turned to investors and capital, acquiring the Daily Pilot became a common theme. We explored bankruptcy court, where the Pilot resides and even got the attention of the Tribune’s investment banker in New York. But, in the end, everywhere we looked, no matter what the size of the rock, money was hard to find. This wasn’t the best time to raise money for a news operation.

For about 24 hours, we were depressed. But then we had an idea.

Which brings us to today.

Welcome to our new endeavor, the Newport-Mesa Daily Voice.

No large backers. No deep pockets. Just a group of us committed to providing Newport-Mesa with more local news, commentary and information, at a time when many news organizations are folding up shop.

We’ll start with some baby steps, but will grow up soon enough with the help of additional contributors and reader input. Stay tuned and you’ll see: the latest news posted whenever it happens; a fun and unique way to cover prep sports (we’ll tell you the secret this fall); community commentary from a diverse group of locals; and video for better editorial coverage and better results for advertisers.

We’ll also aggregate content from other local favorite sites so you can find everything about Newport-Mesa at one website.

As always, Newport-Mesa deserves a watchdog, a community forum where issues can be debated, a place where whatever is happening in the community can reside, and a community cheerleader when a cause needs championing.

It’s going to be blast. Here are a couple of things you can do for us: first, tell 10 friends about what we’re up to and then, have each of them tell 10 friends and so on. Also, when you have a good story idea, please tell us ASAP. If you want to be a contributor, please shoot us an e-mail. And please submit to us your organization’s events so we can publicize them.

We hope you’ll find that we’ll feel like an old, comfortable pair of shoes.

--Tom Johnson