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This is our year-end letter to our readers. As most of you know, the Shepherd Express has been serving Milwaukee for the past 40 years bringing you honest and courageous coverage of serious news issues. As I talk to readers, often at our events especially our Best Of parties in January, an amazing number of you have been picking up the Shepherd for close to 40 years. We have always been a free publication because we believe that democracy needs an informed citizenry, so we don’t want lack of money to deprive anyone from getting news and analysis especially honest, accurate news. Virtually, all the major media in our area: newspapers, radio and television are owned by conservative, out-of-state corporate interests.
As everyone knows, smaller, locally owned media companies are struggling. Independent newspapers throughout the country continue to fail as advertising revenues are sucked up by the mega-corporations like Facebook and Google. The Shepherd has been struggling for years, since the Great Recession of 2008, but we are mission driven and we plan to be around for another 40 years. I have been the editor/publisher for the past 25 years. I do not take a salary or get any expenses paid. Some people volunteer at various noble nonprofit organizations, so my work is given in that same spirit of serving the common good.
Three Sources of Revenue
The Shepherd is primarily supported by three sources of revenue: advertising, events and most recently our readers with our Friends of the Shepherd Express. Many of our advertisers are event driven or hospitality businesses, so when the pandemic hit in early 2020, they basically went dark. After the vaccines were approved and many people got vaccinated and now boosted a few times, these businesses are back albeit hindered by labor shortages.
When much of Milwaukee closed in 2020, we shifted most of our resources to our website, shepherdexpress.com, and built it into one of the most popular news websites in Wisconsin. In the interest of helping our small businesses, we listened to our advertisers who asked us to become a glossy publication because they wanted to see their ads really pop. It was the right decision.
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Events and the Friends Group
Our events are coming back as we see COVID-19 becoming more endemic and for most people who are vaccinated and boosted, COVID often manifests itself as a bad cold for a few days. We are planning an event a month in 2023, and we invite you to please attend.
The Friends group is slowly growing as people realize the importance of a courageous, locally, and independently owned news publication that will print what the corporate news media companies including print, radio and television are afraid to cover. Our endorsements, for example, were especially appreciated this past year as people began to feel that Democracy was really on the ballot in November and America had to win. Fortunately for America, Democracy won at the polls in November. Unfortunately, in our current highly partisan country, we lost some distribution points and a few advertisers who were strong Trump supporters and election deniers. That’s the cost of being an honest, courageous free press.
Keeping the Shepherd Express Free
Also, many long-time readers who for decades had picked up a free Shepherd every week starting when they were young and needed a free publication and one that they said, “got it.” Now that they are older and more financially secure, many have been joining our Friend’s group saying that “it is now my time to give back to enable younger people, often saddled with student debt, to continue to get a free Shepherd like we got when we were young.”
Today you can get the Shepherd free as a glossy monthly publication, on our very popular website, or in our daily e-newsletter that is delivered to over 60,000 inboxes six days a week. We are committed to keeping the Shepherd free to you but running a small media company is a costly proposition.
Like every business, our costs have gone up especially paper. Most paper comes out of Canada, so we do not have the problems associated with the congestion at the East and West coast ports. But there is still a problem getting the paper down from the mills in Canada. I talked to one company that said that their mill had 80 semi-trailers filled with paper, but there were only 21 tractors with drivers willing to bring the paper down to the states. That’s just one example.
Our Mission and Commitment to You
All the above efforts are done to bring you solid journalistic content, however you choose to consume it. We take pride in providing you with intelligent, courageous, and accurate journalism that is not afraid to take on anyone, any organization, any corporation, or any level of government that is cheating or in any way deliberately hurting the people, the nonprofit organizations or the businesses of Milwaukee. We are guided by a strong belief in democratic institutions and social justice. We ask you to please help and support the Shepherd Express by patronizing our advertisers, attending our events, and most importantly, joining our Friends of the Shepherd Express.
Thank you
Louis Fortis
Editor/Publisher
