Launching a newspaper

[joeyforpresident]

My career goal is to one day own an independent newspaper.

Kat, you know what The Ellis County Press is. I want a paper 90 percent identical to that one, minus the neo-con editorial writers.

But I'm giving this a whole lot of thought. Do we have any like-minded libertarian or freedom-loving advertisers that would be willing to put their bucks in a venture like this?

If the name isn't taken, I'd propose we call the paper The Cheshire County Press and be a weekly watchdog on local, state and national government.

I'd need to get some folks to help me in finding out how much printers cost; could get the Sentinel to print our paper if possible.

Plus, the true independents out there would benefit from having a "layman's paper."

Sorry, but no Chamber of Commerce stories in my paper

[Russell Kanning]

Sorry, but no Chamber of Commerce stories in my paper

already with the heavy-handed editing .... this could be rough

how about stories that are happy?

[Caleb]

Joey,

My time is very limited as I am currently pursuing 3 liberty-oriented pursuits, but I am intrigued by the idea of a liberty newspaper and might be willing to help you fund it, for some stock consideration and an agreement that you will occasionally run an article written by yours truly.  Not rich by any means, but I do have a decent job  and I imagine I won't be the only one interested.

My suggestion, draw up a business plan and sell shares of stock to friends of freedom.

Caleb

[joeyforpresident]

Caleb, you honestly don't think I could write all of  the stories do you? Even your campaign would be something we'd promote.

Selling shares, though, that'll be tricky. Are you talking about going public with the company?

Once I figure out how much an area printer costs to actually publish our paper, we can start with a business plan. Primerica should make me quite a bit of money as well, but I'll need to get my insurance license first...

[Russell Kanning]

shares can be whatever you decide they are JD

[joeyforpresident]

A friend of mine said she bought shares at her Florida church that were generating 10-12%  interest a year.

How the crap do you get shares like that for a paper?

And, a newspaper-editor friend of mine at the local university here in town is going to show me how to actually construct the paper, i.e., putting it together on computer.

She's got Macs though.

I love PCs.

Macs = caca, but I'm still gonna learn how to do it.

[Pat McCotter]

I understand Macs are great for graphics and layout.

[KBCraig]

I don't like PCs, but if I wanted to play a particular game, I'd learn.

If you want to do print layout and graphics, you'd better get over any aversion to Macs. At least if you want the printers to speak to you instead of chunking rocks whenever they see you.

Kevin

[Russell Kanning]

A friend of mine said she bought shares at her Florida church that were generating 10-12%? interest a year.

How the crap do you get shares like that for a paper?

Maybe she loaned money to the church and they are paying her interest.

You beg people for money?

[Caleb]

Joey,

You don't have to take your corporation public to sell shares.  An IPO would be costly and premature.  The best thing to do would be to know how much money you need initially.  Let's say its 20k.  You start your corporation with, say, 200 shares. Then you divide your shares in half.  You keep 50% of them, but you sell the other 100 shares to raise the 20k.  When you form the corporation, you set it up in such a way that those investors are initial investors. There's a place on the corporation forms to list the amount of total stock, the principal investors, and the shares of stock owned by each investor.

Caleb

[pcwallis]

calibaba77

What type of legal entity would you say should be set up for this project ?  How many investors can invest in a corp. b/4 you must register with the state and feds.  Will he need a confidential memo. for all investors to sign off on ?

I would like to see a newspaper get off the ground and up and running. 

Does anyone else have any ideas that joeyforpresident needs to know.

[Russell Kanning]

What type of legal entity would you say should be set up for this project ?

possibly none

[Caleb]

Russell, while I understand your objections to corporations, doing a newspaper without a corp is EXTREMELY dangerous.  Without a corporation, the publisher would be PERSONALLY LIABLE for any lawsuits (including "libel" lawsuits).  The corporation protects the individual publisher from financial ruin in the event of being targeted by the government.

As to how you form one here in NH, give me a week or so and I'll have an answer, the requirements differ a little state to state.

Caleb

[Russell Kanning]

Who says that an evil lawyer would not still go after the publisher?

I don't know why people are so eager to ask the government for permission to start up an enterprise.