Community is its own newspaper

Rich Carr thinks maybe he has reinvented the small-town newspaper.

He's the editor of the Orting News, which has been in business for a month now. Orting, in Pierce County southeast of Tacoma, was served by The Gazette, which folded in March after 16 years, most recently as a weekly.

The Gazette you could hold in your hands. The News exists only on the Internet. But the most significant difference is that the News is written mostly by the community.

Seems everyone is trying to find more financially sustainable ways of distributing information and entertainment.

When I wrote about recent layoffs at The Times, Carr sent me a note. I feel your pain, he wrote, but sometimes a loss is an opportunity. His dad taught him that.

Carr, 43, runs an advertising and marketing agency in Orting, Carr Knowledge. Carr and his staff were talking about the demise of The Gazette and decided to fill the vacuum — and make some money.

The site solicits articles written by people in the community and makes it easy for anyone to submit a story or commentary using a form on the Web site. The site is updated throughout the day.

You have to include your name and e-mail address. The article gets mailed back to that e-mail address to help verify whether the owner of the address sent the article.

"Suddenly a small-town community has total freedom of the press, as they are the press ... " Carr said.

Sort of. Carr and some of his ad staff who have media backgrounds tidy up grammar and anything unseemly.

He'll pay a pro or get one of his staffers to do important stories that haven't been submitted by readers. But if readers have a disagreement, he's not playing referee. Responses go directly to the writer. And The News won't do the big stories and investigations traditional papers do.

It's a model that wouldn't fly in a city. Maybe in a town small enough for most people to know each other there would be some natural checks and balances.

A professional staff asking sound questions would be the ideal. But a couple of Orting residents I talked with said that while they miss The Gazette, they're glad someone's trying to fill the void.

His isn't the solution, but it is one solution, particularly on the business end.

Carr says he's gotten inquiries from people in several small towns around the country who want to use the system, which they can do for a fee. His company also provides software support.

The Orting News had attracted more than 14,000 subscribers by its third week. Subscribers get an e-mail of its headlines, which reminds them to look at the site and the ads it carries. Subscribers don't pay, but advertisers do.

The biggest story so far was an attempted abduction. Two strangers offered a fourth-grader candy to get into their car, but she didn't do it.

Without the News, Carr says, the local school would have had no way to get word to the community quickly.

The Orting News (www.ortingnews.com) isn't journalism, but it does show that Carr is thinking like his father taught him.

Jerry Large's column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.