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We're bringing local news back to eastern Summit County
You deserve a locally owned news source. Created by the team behind The Portager, we started The Summiteer to report on local government, businesses, schools and nonprofits serving Cuyahoga Falls, Hudson, Springfield and everywhere in between.
What ever happened to the Falls News-Press? The Stow Sentry? The Tallmadge Express? The Hudson Hub Times ain't what it used to be. And neither is the Beacon for that matter.
Why...?
The answer is simple: An out-of-state holding company purchased these newspapers from their local owners. All they cared about was milking profits, so they immediately began to squeeze every last penny out of our communities.
They raised subscription prices where they could.
They fired reporters.
They cut pages until there was nothing left to squeeze.
And then, in the case of most of the weeklies, they ceased publication altogether.
This is happening all over the country. But some communities are reviving local news coverage. In Portage County, thousands of local residents dissatisfied with the decline of the Record-Courier said "enough" — they subscribed to The Portager, founded in 2020, which cost a fraction of the price and actually invests all its revenue back into the community.
The Portager hosted a booth at Oktoberfest in downtown Kent.
Today, Portage County residents (and Mogadore) enjoy broad coverage of their cities and rural townships. The Portager has over 7,000 subscribers and counting.
Then The Portager expanded into Stow, Munroe Falls and Silver Lake with The Spotlight, a digital publication serving nearly 2,000 subscribers. Local and regional businesses — from banks and hospitals to Realtors and retailers — have recognized the value of community news and placed ads seen millions of times.
The Portager has been publishing since 2020 and in print since 2023.
These publications are meeting the enormous demand for information about local taxes, zoning laws, school levies, new regulations, small businesses opening (and closing), local elections and the good work being done by charities and volunteers who make our communities strong.
At the same time, Akron has experienced its own revival of local news with Signal Akron, a nonprofit newsroom that's thriving under the leadership of former Beacon-Journal managing editor and Kent State professor Susan Zake.
But what about you???
Where's the coverage focused exclusively on Cuyahoga Falls, Hudson, Tallmadge, Springfield Township and Lakemore?
The Summiteer is your local news source.
The compass arrow in our logo points toward Northeast Ohio, of course.
As the creators of The Portager and The Spotlight, we're bringing local news back to eastern Summit County.
Our team comprises many former Record Publishing employees living in Summit County. We're ready to serve you and grow a new community newspaper from the ground up.
We believe local news should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay. Everyone is a part of our community, and local news helps people stay connected to each other through local government coverage and information about events and volunteer opportunities.
That's why The Summiteer will be distributed for free throughout the communities we serve. You'll be able to pick up copies at grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants, coffee shops and libraries. We'll publish a list of our distribution sites soon.
The Summiteer will start off as a monthly newspaper, but we hope to publish more frequently and grow like we've done in Portage County with the support of our subscribers who do choose to pay.
This is your chance to get in early with a digital subscription. If you can't afford it, don't worry. Just sign up for a free account. Free digital subscriptions give you occasional access to updates from the editors and events going on around town.
If you can afford to pay, you won't regret it. By signing up for a paid subscription, you'll be joining our exclusive group of supporters who are restoring local news coverage in Summit County. By becoming a paid subscriber, you'll get access to weekly email dispatches from our publisher about the project, plus timely news as its published. You won't have to wait for the monthly paper to come out to get your news. You'll stay informed in real time. And we'll share things to do and local events, too!
If you have any questions, just shoot us an email at ben@thesummiteer.org or call our publisher, Ben Wolford, on his cell at 330-249-1338.
That's me on the left, Ben Wolford, along with several members of The Summiteer team.
We're very excited about this journey and we invite you to be excited too. There aren't many communities in the country that are taking back local news. But you're one of them now. Enjoy it!
Thank you for reading and we look forward to serving you.
Ben Wolford Publisher, The Summiteer ben@thesummiteer.org 330-249-1338
