Birmingham’s Weld newspaper is “temporarily” suspends print publication

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Weld logo
[Photo Credit: Weld]

As of Wednesday, Weld, Birmingham’s six year old newspaper, has suspended its weekly print publication until further notice.

According to a post on Weld’s website the suspension is expected to be temporary.

As of July 13, 2017, Weld is suspending publication of its weekly newspaper until further notice. This suspension is expected to be temporary, as the company completes ongoing discussions regarding its future and the future of print journalism in Birmingham. In the meantime, Weld will continue to provide new content on its website, weldbham.com.

Weld newsbox
[Photo Credit: Ryan Scott | Weld]

While the reason for the suspension has not been made public, it is suspected to be due to the high cost of print publication and lack of public funding.

In February, Weld turned to GoFundMe, a crowdfunding platform to help fund a three-pronged effort to hire more journalists, print more newspapers and expand distribution.

“We’ll hire more journalists. We’ll print more newspapers. We’ll continue to grow our distribution footprint. And that’s the key. That’s the area for growth,” said publisher Mark Kelly in February of the GoFundMe campaign. “It’s to help us to not just offset the cost of doing community journalism, but to increase the audience, increase our page count, increase the number of people who have the opportunity to look at our paper, and to increase the amount of news and information that we provide that’s important.

According to their fundraising page, they’ve fallen shy of their $300,000 goal, having only raised $12,010 from 116 donors.