Launching the Tri-Cities Dispatch: A local news experiment
“We called it our ongoing experiment in hyperlocal journalism,” Jeremy Shepherd, managing editor of Tri-Cities Dispatch, recounts of the early days of the independent outlet.
Tri-Cities Dispatch launched in the spring of 2021 during a time marked by both media industry layoffs and a growing number of new digital startups aiming to fill the gaps in local coverage.
Drawing inspiration from the early days of Victoria, B.C.’s local news start-up, the Capital Daily, the non-profit Constellation Media saw potential to fill the gaps from the ongoing loss of quality local news coverage in the Tri-Cities region, a group of cities outside of Vancouver B.C.
“It was still an open question whether or not there was any kind of audience for this thing and how [large] that audience would be,” Shepherd explained, who was the first permanent hire after launch. “But starting out, there was kind of a groundswell of interest — more than I anticipated.”
After launch, Tri-Cities Dispatch quickly signed up 2,000 subscribers. Today, about 9,400 subscribers receive the daily Dispatch newsletter directly into their email inboxes.
The outlet now operates with a combination of local news grants from the Canadian government, financial support from subscribers and ad placements in its daily newsletters.
How Indiegraf’s ad team supported a sustainable news model
The success of the ad program spearheaded by Indiegraf has supported Constellation Media’s launch of two other outlets in the region: The Ridge, which covers Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows and the Surrey Citizen, which covers Surrey.
“The more money we get from the advertising, the less we are reliant on our subscribers sending money, which I know is hard for them,” Shepherd explained. “It’s a tough economy for a lot of people… It’s allowed us to keep going.”
Winning over key community sponsors
Under the editorial direction of Shepherd, Dispatch’s daily newsletter evolved from reporting daily COVID numbers to becoming more of a widespread community news source with support from freelance journalists.
Its scope was determined in part by the closure of regional newspapers. In 2023, one of B.C.’s two major legacy newspaper companies, Glacier Media, stopped printing papers for three outlets in the region: Tri-City News, Burnaby Now, and the New West Record.
In 2025, it shuttered these outlets entirely, amounting to a loss of about 60 per cent of the journalistic workforce in the region, according to a story by Tri-Cities Dispatch.
When Ramona Wildeman, Sponsorship Manager at Indiegraf, was asked to support the Dispatch with ad sales, she says the existing media kit was trying to sell too many things. “Don’t sell eight things when you’re not selling one,” she recalled advising the team.
“And so we really streamlined — we basically offered just a presenting sponsor for the newsletter. And then it was trying to promote that to different organizations.”
Part of the challenge for the Dispatch is that it’s serving three cities with large populations, Wildeman added. The question became, “How do we get key players in each of these different cities to get involved in the publication?”
She said it took “relentless” effort to get to those first sales.
“It takes a lot of time figuring out who the right person is to talk to,” Wildeman said. “So it’s back to regular sales skills. You just have to be consistent. Find the right people to talk to you, make sure that you’re getting past the gatekeepers.”
Landing those first clients also involved reaching out at an opportune time. “When the Glacier Media product went to digital only [in 2023], it was like, ‘Okay, so here’s an opportunity.’”
Around that time, Wildeman landed the Dispatch’s first big ad deal, bringing the City of Coquitlam on for weekly newsletter sponsor placements for all of 2024. She knew the city likely had advertising dollars freed up from Glacier Media’s cuts to local newspapers.
She was then able to bring this success to the City of Port Coquitlam, pitching another weekly ad slot.
While Wildeman is still working to partner with the City of Port Moody consistently, her advice is to keep on going.
“Timing, consistency — just keep doing the work so that when the opportunity arises, you say, ‘Okay, here’s a valid opportunity for you.’”
The value of supporting local news vs. big tech ads
Now that the Dispatch is selling out the presenting sponsor spaces, she’s working on selling smaller newsletter ad spaces at a lower price point.
That way, for prospective clients who find $300 beyond their budget, she can offer a $100 placement. Partners that commit to a whole year of ads get the advantage of a lower price point.
With this strategy, Indiegraf is helping encourage long-term partnerships that offer financial sustainability.
“So [the Dispatch] can kind of count on $3,000 a month coming in from ad sales with the City of Coquitlam, the City of Port Coquitlam and the City of Port Moody and other local businesses.”
“If we had said we wanted to charge more, these partners might not have committed to as much.”
Part of her pitch involves reminding prospective clients they can choose to support a community non-profit instead of throwing money at Meta for ads, which is actively harming Canadian news outlets by banning Canadian news on their platforms as a retaliatory response to Canada’s Online News Act, which became law in 2023.
“Use that money to support something that’s being produced locally in the community, right?”
READ MORE: How to develop sponsor-centric messaging. An Indiegraf Experts’ guide.
Tracking impact: How newsletter ads deliver measurable results
Wildeman explains that the benefit of digital ad sales means news outlets can immediately demonstrate impact to clients. “We can show them that 100 people actually click through onto their site to read and that there’s a level of engagement there, and it’s measurable, right? With print, it’s hard to know who’s seen it.”
Open rates for the Dispatch’s newsletters are frequently above industry benchmarks at 59 per cent, she added.
To support the ongoing growth of advertising, Wildeman emphasized the importance of continuing to grow the list of subscribers. A larger audience empowers Wildeman to ask for more money from advertisers.
With Constellation now offering daily newsletters in other large cities surrounding Vancouver, they maintain a spirit of experimentation.
‘There’s a line in Citizen Kane, where he says, ‘I don’t know how to run a newspaper. I just try everything I can think of.’ And I feel like that’s pretty accurate,” says Shepherd. “We never quite know what we’re doing, but we just try our best every day and follow the news as best we can.
“I think the success is that we’re still here, at a time of a lot of closures and a lot of paring down.”
Indiegraf has helped over 120 publications across North America start, grow and manage an independent news business. Interested in joining Indiegraf’s growing network? We are happy to answer any questions.
