Commentary by Chris Smith, Clarksville Now editor-in-chief:
A few years ago, I think it was 2019, I was speaking at a Kiwanis Club meeting, giving them a year-in-review recap of the top local media stories.
I was editor of the newspaper at the time, and I was fielding questions about the decline of print – which is a nationwide problem affecting newspapers and magazines across the country. I was urging everyone to sign up for a digital subscription, and many in the audience were open to that idea.
But the point came up that in a community as young and transient as Clarksville, not everyone is going to pay for a digital newspaper subscription. One Kiwanian pointed out that what we need is a free digital newspaper that unites our community by giving everyone the same access to local journalism.
I don’t remember how I responded out loud, but I remember thinking to myself, “Clarksville Now could become that.”
And, at the time, Clarksville Now was part of the way there, providing free breaking news and community information. What was missing was investigative journalism.
Little did I know that a couple of years later, I would leave the newspaper and become editor of Clarksville Now, and that 5 Star Media Group would invest in additional staffing for the site, making our office right here on Old Russellville Pike the largest all-local news operation in Clarksville.
What sets Clarksville Now apart?
Here are some changes you might have noticed over the last year and a half at Clarksville Now:
Our focus is Clarksville. Yes, what happens in Washington, Beijing and Nashville is important. But we don’t have reporters in Washington, Beijing or Nashville, so why should we dabble in that content? I urge everyone reading this to go to APNews.com for national and world news, and to WKRN.com for state news. That keeps us from having to spend all day copy/pasting AP articles into our website. Instead, we can focus our time and attention on the things that are happening right here in Clarksville.
We take investigative journalism seriously. These stories take lots of time and effort, with reporters digging through public records, doing research and conducting interviews. But it’s critical to our mission to ensure that government is doing its job and that everyday citizens are treated with justice. And we do all that working under a transparent Ethics Policy. You can find our investigative work and other special projects compiled at Clarksville Now Special Reports.
Weekend things to do highlights. If you didn’t hear about a big entertainment event until after it happened, you probably didn’t check our Weekend Top Picks. Every Thursday, we highlight the must-see events happening in Clarksville so that you don’t miss out on the fun.
We’re on the air. Clarksville Now’s news reports are broadcast daily on 5 Star Media Group’s nine local radio stations, including Q108 and Beaver 100.3, and with longer reports on our newest station, NewZee 105.5, devoted to news and talk radio.
Your weather is local. We provide you two weather forecasts each week: Work Week Weather and Weekend Weather. And you’ll notice that these are Clarksville-specific forecasts, not Nashville. Our weather patterns are very different, and if you rely on a Nashville forecast, you can miss a lot.
All your obituaries in one place. We post the latest Clarksville-connected obituaries five days a week, Monday-Friday, from every local funeral home so that you never miss an upcoming funeral or visitation.
A weekly recap of the top news. Do you miss the way the newspaper served as a sort of digest of the top news, especially on Sundays? You can get that every Sunday morning with News in Clarksville, providing summaries of the top stories of the week.
Breaking news when it happens. If you want to know immediately when breaking news breaks, you can sign up for push alerts to your phone through our app, or through text alerts (text NEWS to 77000).
The result of all that: Clarksville Now is now your primary source for local breaking news, community information and investigative journalism.
Clarksville Now by the numbers
Here’s a look at Clarksville Now’s readership by numbers that far outpace all other local media:
- 2 million monthly page views
- 500,000 monthly unique users
- 103,000 Facebook followers
- 15,000 Instagram followers
- 10,000 Twitter followers
- 41,000 app push alert subscribers
- 2,700 text club subscribers
- 28,000 email newsletter subscribers
How can we make this easy?
With all those options on all those platforms, things aren’t as simple as they were back in the days when everyone picked up the same newspaper on their front lawn at the same time.
Some people wait to see our content as it rolls out on Facebook. But we can’t control what surfaces in your Facebook news feed – it may give you nothing but our crime stories and none of the good community news that we publish every day.
But it can be simple again.
Visit us each morning directly at ClarksvilleNow.com to see all our articles, or sign up for our daily emailed newsletter.
If everyone does that, we will reach that goal: Uniting the community by giving everyone the same access to local journalism.
We’re proud to be part of that, and we hope you’ll join us.