Dear Lawrence Times readers:
It is astonishing to me that a full year has gone by since our first publishing anniversary. First and foremost, I want to say thank you.
What an incredible second year it has been! We have even more to celebrate now than we did last year. Just to share a few high points:
• Lawrence has celebrated a delightful number of national championships: KU basketball; Free State High School debate; the Raven Book Store and the Kansas City football team, for instance. Happy Lawrence is best Lawrence, and good news is our favorite.
• We, too, have received prestigious awards at both the state and national levels.
• We’ve launched Lawrence Times TV, the delightful brainchild of Jordan Winter and Adam Johnson. We’ve loved sharing community joy in this new format, and providing a new perspective on our town.
• We’ve been honored to work with more than two dozen talented reporters and photojournalists at various points, including many students. Rockstar Maya Hodison has taken the position of equity reporter and engagement director. We look forward to offering more structured internships in the near future.
• We have amplified the voices of people who are most directly affected by important issues in this town. I am so grateful for the members of our news team who have worked so hard to make connections with people who have previously been silenced and — completely understandably — distrustful of reporters. Not all “media” is the same, and we’re proving that.
• And we’re still providing local news and information for everyone, regardless of whether they can afford to pay for a subscription.
Thank you to our subscribers in Lawrence and beyond and to our advertisers for your incredible support. We’re able to keep our site open for everyone to read because of you. That means we can also provide services such as free obituaries and a free events calendar for all Lawrence and Douglas County community members.
We are only growing as quickly as our finances allow because we want this to remain sustainable. That means we are still a small team, and we still face plenty of challenges and limitations. Some days, our coverage is lighter than others; that’s generally because we’re busy working on bigger stories and projects, but we wish we could do everything, all the time. We appreciate the community sticking with us as we continue to grow and expand our coverage in breadth and depth.
If you don’t already subscribe but you have some spare change and our coverage is worth it to you, please click here to sign up for a subscription now (or send a little one-time anniversary gift!). If you can’t afford to subscribe, no worries! Please keep reading, and maybe tell a friend, neighbor or relative to consider signing up.
We pledge to continue building something amazing and pushing to make this beautiful community an even better place.
With gratitude, solidarity and love for this town,
Mackenzie Clark, reporter/founder
If our local journalism matters to you, please help us keep doing this work.
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
