Thank you, West Carleton

WEST CARLETON – (From the publisher, Jake Davies) West Carleton Online provided free access over the last week to show you what we can do. Nearly 1,500 of you checked us out and visited 4,448 pages in that time. We wanted you to know we are a unique news service providing original content focused on West Carleton.

The following stories we were either the first, or the only media organization to cover:

• The Warriors vie for the Chevy Good Deeds Cup (three stories so far)
• Dunrobin Winter Carnival a sunny reunion
• The Constance Bay Old Sled Run
• The Carp Road Corridor proposed concrete batching plant (four stories so far)
• Three fires within the community over the last week
• WCSS student earns $100,000 award
• Inferno keeping local players on ice (West Carleton Jr. B hockey)
• The Fitzroy Harbour Winter Carnival
• El-Chantiry thoughts on rural elements of 2019 Ottawa budget
• Fitzroy Harbour bridge repairs

During our free week, we published 31 stories with a focus on West Carleton (we published more than 60 stories in that same time). Of those 31 stories, more than 25 were exclusive to West Carleton Online. Because of our focus on West Carleton our target audience is very limited. There are only 10,000 homes in West Carleton. At $50 a year, we are the most inexpensive online news service in Canada. Those two factors of course make our survival risky. We need the whole community to be a part of this project.

We are providing more coverage focused on West Carleton than any media outlet ever has (I am both a West Carleton native, and worked for the West Carleton review from 2001 to 2008 and again in 2017). We are the first media outlet in West Carleton history to provide daily coverage on the community. Every day we are forwarding ongoing stories or presenting brand new ones. Our growing stable of columnists and contributors are all residents of West Carleton. We are telling the tale of our community.

There is a reason I chose subscriber-based over advertiser-based for this project. We all know the Golden Rule – ‘he (or she) that makes the gold, makes the rules.’ If West Carleton Online is subscriber-based, then it is subscriber-owned. I, like everyone else who works for a living, is responsible to those that pay the bills. Your ownership of West Carleton Online gives you the power to direct content, to raise your voice and to ensure this media outlet covers the issues important to you. Our strength is in our numbers.

But that’s not the only reason to subscribe. For the lowest subscription fee in the industry, you get:

• Unlimited access to new, daily content including breaking news, community news, local obituaries, events and information relevant to the West Carleton community
• Free access to post on the most comprehensive West Carleton events listing available anywhere
• Free access to post your business to our business directory – reach a wider audience and let them know about your work
• Free Daily Headlines email service – every morning we will email you all of the previous day’s news stories – never miss a headline
• When you contact West Carleton Online by phone or email, through the website’s contact system, on Facebook or Twitter, you are contacting the publisher, and he will return your message – his livelihood depends on it

All these services are unique to West Carleton Online (try asking your local newspaper, radio station, TV station or online news service for a free ad). We hope you enjoyed our free access week, and now we hope you will help support West Carleton Online and community journalism. Together we can create a hub for community news and a voice for West Carleton.

https://westcarletononline.com/membership-join/