Longmont news startup changes hands

LONGMONT — The McClatchy Co., a publisher of newspapers around the nation, has shifted gears on its Compass Experiment and will spin off its Longmont Leader online publication to Canadian company Village Media Inc., effective March 1.

Mandy Jenkins, the general manager of the Compass Experiment — which operated two and planned a third community news startup — said the company had determined that its experiment would not produce profitable, independent news operations as designed. As a result, it moved its Youngstown, Ohio, operation under the McClatchy news division with a Kansas City Star editor leading it and shifted control of its Longmont operation to Village Media.

Village Media is an Ontario-based company with multiple community news websites in Canada. It is unrelated to McClatchy but one division of Village Media licenses online platforms to media companies. The Longmont Leader runs on the Village platform.

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Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Jeff Elgie, CEO of Village Media, told BizWest that Village will fully own the Leader upon close of the deal, and that the company has an interest in Colorado.

Village Media posted on job website Lensa a publisher position in Loveland. In the description, Village said, “We live, breathe and thrive in small markets. We value being involved in our community and recognize the significance and responsibility of keeping you informed about what is happening in your community and how that can not only help hold people accountable but also bond a community in its understanding of itself.” 

Elgie said the Loveland job posting is one of several. “We want to open at least one other city in Colorado and possibly more,” he said.

While newspaper companies around the globe have faced strong headwinds in recent years, Elgie said the Village news strategy has been working.

“We had our best year ever in 2020. We added 30 staff members last year and didn’t have to lay anyone off during the pandemic,” he said.