We’re pleased to announce the first edition of The Lenawee Voice, a brand-new news and information source for the greater Adrian area.

This publication has its roots in a series of meetings earlier this year, when a group of concerned citizens got together at the Adrian District Library to discuss the future of local news in our community. Unfortunately, across the country, local news in towns like Adrian is dependent on the whims of corporate owners who have never set foot in the communities affected by their decisions. As hedge funds motivated only by short-term profit take over more and more papers, once-robust community newsrooms get hollowed out and reduced to a shell of what they once were, and the hardworking journalists who remain in those newsrooms find themselves trying to do their jobs with fewer and fewer resources.

It’s a vicious spiral, and the people in charge have to know it. Whatever else they may be, newspaper-chain executives aren’t stupid. They understand that when they lay off reporters and shrink page counts, the result will be non-renewed subscriptions and fewer advertisers. But they also know that each round of cuts will be followed by a short grace period before the resulting drop in revenue, so they can just keep repeating the cycle, wringing every last penny out of the newspapers they own while gradually strangling them to death.

This is our answer to that problem. Started by a handful of the community members who attended those meetings at the library earlier this year, The Lenawee Voice is part of a growing nationwide trend of locally owned, community-driven startups emerging to fill the gaps left by slash-and-burn corporate giants. Many are online-only, but you might be surprised to learn how many are in print as well, and that’s the path we’ve chosen.

This will be our sole issue in 2023, then we’ll publish again at the beginning of January — and our plan is to publish monthly starting in March. Of course, when news items are more time sensitive, we’ll post them online at lenaweevoice.com. Our print edition will be mailed free of charge to all 17,000 addresses in the 49221 zip code, with hopes to expand in the future. 

What can you expect from The Lenawee Voice?

— Stories focused on our core goals. These goals include: promoting civic engagement and volunteerism; increasing citizen involvement in government; strengthening local businesses and institutions; and helping people feel more connected to their community.

— Most of the sections you’d expect to find in any community newspaper — though we’ve chosen some particular areas to emphasize. The sections in this first edition are a good sample of what we plan to offer you every month. Our Business pages will highlight the locally owned establishments that are the backbone of our economy. We’ll have a strong focus on Arts & Living stories because, although there’s nothing wrong with heading to Ann Arbor or Toledo for entertainment, we don’t want people to feel they have to leave Lenawee County to find things to do. And in recognition of Lenawee County’s agricultural nature — about 80% of our acreage is farmland — our Land & Water section will deal with agriculture, natural resources and the environment.

— Forward-looking stories intended to empower citizens. A monthly print schedule is both a handicap and an opportunity. If we attend an Adrian City Commission meeting and write about what happened, we can post the story online almost immediately, but by the time the printed paper arrives in your mailbox the news could be three weeks old. Whenever possible, we will try to look forward ­— talking less about decisions that just got made and more about decisions that will be made in the coming weeks. We’ll emphasize information about how you can contribute to the civic process and make your voice heard. 

Every community has a handful of dedicated citizens who are in the habit of visiting government websites, reading meeting agendas, and showing up at meetings to give their input. But their numbers are few. We hope to get more people involved in civic affairs.

What won’t you see from us?

— A lot of breaking news, at least at first. This is a citizen-driven effort, staffed by a mixture of volunteers and freelancers. That means, for instance, we won’t be able to send somebody to the site of every police and fire call as it happens. We’ll focus instead on providing you with a broader view of the issues that matter to our community.

— A lot of state and national news — or much of anything at all from outside Lenawee County. We’re not trying to be provincial here, but let’s be honest: You don’t need us to waste paper printing stories that you can easily find in a dozen places online. We’ll be relentlessly local in our focus. While we don’t plan to ignore statewide topics, we’ll emphasize thoughtful coverage of larger issues that affect our community rather than horse-race journalism or the tit-for-tat of predictable partisan talking points.

— A lot of sports coverage. This was a harder choice, because high school sports have long been a staple of local newspapers and are a big part of the community — but once again, we’re a largely volunteer-run operation. We’ll try to recognize the achievements of student athletes in our area, but play-by-play game coverage just isn’t in the cards right now. (Maybe down the road!)

We won’t be comprehensive; no one can. We encourage you to get your local news from as many outlets as possible, and we ask for your patience as we learn and grow.

While we hope to cover topics of interest to everyone in Lenawee County, our initial focus will be our county seat of Adrian and those areas not currently served by their own locally owned community paper.

We hope you’ll support the 19 local businesses and organizations that advertised in our debut issue — and please tell them you saw them in The Lenawee Voice! 

If you’re interested in advertising, please email Deborah J. Comstock at [email protected]. You can also email news tips and suggestions for features you’d like to see in the paper to [email protected].

Thank you for reading!