The rise and fall of The Lincolnite: Lessons for independent local news

In a nutshell:

• UK independent local news organisation, The Lincolnite, closed down in September after 14 years of operation
• An expensive attempt to pivot the business during an economic downturn proved unsuccessful
• Just one per cent of readers were willing to convert into paid members. But lack of meaningful support from the government, big tech and philanthropy also speeded up its undoing
• Managing director's reflection: "You need even more investment and time when the technology players around you are spending and investing at a higher rate"

There was a collective shock when The Lincolnite announced in September it was closing down after 14 years of operations. It grew out of the University of Lincoln as a scrappy student title (formerly The Linc), led by then-editor-in-chief Daniel Ionescu. After graduating, Ionescu, inspired by growing mobile technology and social media habits, took the helm as managing director of The Lincolnite and transformed it into a thriving and even more ambitious, independent local news operation.

However, the media landscape began to shift. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter fueled its early success but over time started to change priorities. Facebook in particular shuttered critical news products, like the Comment Mirroring feature, particularly useful for duplicating social media comments onto news websites, which was axed in 2017. Later it has also tanked news' visibility and referral traffic.

The Lincolnite had lost control over its content distribution, so Ionescu decided they needed to try something else. He invested £500k raised from angel investment into a community-centric app, MyLocal, boasting a social media-style news feed, curating geolocated posts from emergency services, community groups and other news organisations.

The Lincolnite also launched a membership as part of this, paywalling around 10 per cent of its content, typically exclusive reporting. And it had plans to license the product to other news publishers.

However, upon closing down, less than one per cent of its readership was convinced to take up membership. In hindsight, Ionescu thinks that he left it too late to introduce paid-for content, as readers had been getting free content from his title and his rivals' for more than a decade.

"What was proved was that people wanted to read [exclusive] stories, but wern't prepared to pay for it in a market where there were still other free players," says Ionescu on the Journalism.co.uk podcast.

"If you're the first to market with a subscription, you are possibly at a disadvantage."

The lack of membership uptake, mixed with an expensive attempt to pivot the business during an economic downturn, is what Ionescu puts the closure down to. The runway simply ran out, and only further investment could have saved it.

"Smaller communities and cities cannot sustain a news organisation with an actual team of people and an office and a budget to roam around a county and produce quality journalism. That's why you will continue to see a lot of one-man and two-man bands in local independent media."

Market failure

Between audiences unwilling to pay for news, and social media platforms working against news publishers, you have a recipe for a "market failure" says Ionescu.

Writing on LinkedIn, independent media advisor Sameer Padania challenged this take: "I’d argue that we now exist in a world where we have to create and shape local information markets for the public good, not apologetically tweak commercial markets that will jettison the public good at the first sign of profit warnings.

"That said, some tweaks could push in that direction, for example, the major national media who have benefitted so much from the pipeline of talent from local media could be incentivised to provide some of that capital - whether through tech, legal, HR etc infrastructure, or by actually putting money in, co-investing etc.

"If the government were to find a mechanism to subsidise and encourage their investments, might that open up a new sense of collective purpose and solidarity across the UK media."

The problem is that - in Ionescu's view - those with the ability to support real journalism "are bothered by it and possibly better off without it," referring to local authorities, big businesses, and even marketing agencies that he believes have incentives to limit the reach of hard-hitting local reporting.

"The alternative for independent media is to basically find a sugar daddy, or let's call it a philanthropic benefactor. But again, our experience from the US has shown us they won't take losses forever."

Independent news organisations like Mill Media and The Lead are finding success and building businesses on newsletter subscription platforms like Ghost and Substack. Ionescu said these platforms need to do more to support full news operations, not just content creators.

Lesson learned: grow slow

Ionescu has no regrets about the decisions he made with The Lincolnite, but isolated a few lessons from his experiences for fellow independent news organisations.

• Expect to spend two to three years developing a working business model, be that advertising or subscriptions. Find someone to back you for those difficult years.
• Account for tech volatility. Changes to social and search can be very disruptive, so never become too reliant on them.
• Grow slow, accepting that scale and revenue will be slower, too. In real terms, make that first hire only when the revenues allow for it.

Ionescu is not giving up though. He is starting a new venture, the Millenial Masters podcast and newsletter, spotlighting "remarkable millennial entrepreneurs, founders, and business leaders (aged 25-40) who are making a real impact." He is actively looking for guests, if that is you, shoot him a message on LinkedIn.

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