The Juneau Independent, a new web-based newsroom, launched Friday with a mission to offer a newspaper that is locally owned and operated.
Mark Sabbatini, the former managing editor of the Juneau Empire, is leading the effort. He’s worked in the newspaper industry for nearly four decades with stints at the Empire, the Los Angeles Times and the Antarctic Sun.
Sabbatini announced his resignation from his role with the Empire last week over disagreements with its Mississippi-based publisher, Carpenter Media Group, which bought the paper last year. He said he was then fired by the company.
Sabbatini said his goal is to make the Juneau Independent the city’s new paper of record.
“Media is going through a lot of pretty drastic changes. And so, yes, it’s a little ambitious to launch a news website,” he said. “But if the company that owns the Empire says, ‘We’re not going to keep anybody here,’ then for all practical purposes, the Empire becomes a satellite office of a different paper.”
Sabbatini said he wants to give Juneau residents the option to support a nonpartisan newspaper that is written, edited and reported by people who live in the community. He’s applied to make the outlet a nonprofit, but that is still pending.
The Juneau Independent is currently online only. But Sabbatini said he’d like to offer a print version one day.
So far, the website includes news stories written by Sabbatini, along with a handful of contributed opinion pieces from community members. Sabbatini said his goal is to create a board of directors and hire a handful of full-time reporters. He said that it will come down to how much the community supports it.
“I’m very confident this can do well the way it is,” he said. “Bigger, it’s going to need both more people involved in helping out with it in terms of logistics, and it will need a wider amount of support from the community, in terms of subscribers.”
As of Friday afternoon, the Juneau Independent’s Facebook page already had nearly 1,000 followers.
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