A year ago, La Conner was briefly a news desert, an industry term for a population without a trusted news source. The La Conner Weekly News had closed and the La Conner Community News had yet to start publication, and the community was without a local newspaper.
What a difference a year makes. Here’s an idea, by the numbers:
We’ve published 630 stories and printed more than 271,000 words.
We’ve delivered 42 print issues.
We’ve sent 74 emails — mostly our Tuesday newsletter, plus breaking news alerts and bulletins when the moment demanded it.
On Jan. 17, we launched our first official La Conner Community News newsletter. It went to 241 subscribers. Today, that same newsletter reaches 1,065 readers every week.
In February, we launched the laconnercommunitynews.org website, which has a consistent audience of about 6,000 from across the state and globe.
On March 20, we printed our first issue. Since then, we’ve delivered the weekly newspaper to just over 750 subscribers. Add in out-of-area subscribers and single-copy sales at places like the grocery store and coffee shop, and our weekly print readership is roughly 950.
Our biggest challenge was meeting demand
Our biggest misread this year wasn’t editorial. It was logistics.
We printed 2,000 copies of the first edition because we believed in the moment — and then quickly realized we had underestimated the enthusiasm for the newspaper out of the gate. We had to scale up fast, delivering to 300 households in La Conner and Swinomish by early summer.
Now, we deliver to about 600 in-town subscribers every week and mail to more from as near as Mount Vernon and as far as Atlanta, Georgia. That’s the paper leaving town in the best possible way: as something worth sending, sharing and subscribing to even when you don’t live here anymore.
Readers found us when it mattered
During the Dec. 10 atmospheric river and regional flooding, our web traffic doubled. People weren’t clicking for curiosity — they were checking road conditions, closures, warnings and the latest updates. That’s what a community newspaper is supposed to do: show up in the moments when reliable information is not optional.
National support, local proof
We also captured the attention and support of national journalism organizations. It’s a sign that what La Conner is doing is rare and worth defending.
The Southern Newspaper Publishers Association gave us a critical $25,000 grant. The Asian American Journalists Association invited us to speak at their national conference about news startups. Northwestern University’s State of Local News 2025 report counted us as one of only two new print newspapers in the United States this year. And the Institute for Nonprofit News awarded us a $10,000 grant to help defray overtime costs from storm coverage — recognition that our role as a reliable community resource is growing.
We’re still tallying year-end numbers, but here’s another milestone we’re proud to share: we came very close to reaching our $200,000 fundraising target. With those last two grants and the generosity of local donors at our #GivingTuesday fundraising open house, we estimate we’ve raised about $195,000 in donations — a humbling investment and an extraordinary vote of confidence from the community.
The biggest story still isn’t us
All of these numbers are milestones. But none of them happened by accident, and none of them happened because of one person.
They happened because this town insisted on having a newspaper and that it be in print, not only online. Because people here still believe a paper you can hold, share, clip and save matters.
And by the numbers, that might be the best story of the year.
Kari Mar is the editor and publisher of La Conner Community News.
