This issue marks the second anniversary of Isthmus’ return to print. Thankfully, the whole idea is getting a bit more routine. We’ve moved from 2021’s “Holy crap, we can’t believe we actually got a print edition out the door” to 2022’s “We’ve published 12 issues, maybe it’s not a fluke?” to 2023’s “Okay, this could continue for a while.”
A little recent history before taking stock of how we’re doing, now 24 months into our reboot. My colleagues and I continue to meet people in the community who think we are still privately owned, publish weekly and have a staff of 25. The reality is important to emphasize since it’s relevant to how we do our work today.
In March 2020 Isthmus shut down print production and laid off its staff. With some continued but limited content online we launched a membership program. In April 2021 Isthmus became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. We were determined to get back to print and in August 2021, 17 months after the shutdown, we published and distributed that first issue.
We have not missed a month since and are now a small staff of 6.5. Our papers clock in at 32 or 40 pages, on average, but, with robust sponsorship sales this past June, we had a meaty, 48-page SummerTimes issue. We have also had hefty March editions thanks to the Wisconsin Film Festival, which has printed and distributed its film guide with our paper the last two years.
We have held steady at printing 35,000 issues each month, though we continue to fine tune our distribution sites, discontinuing some in still half-empty government buildings and delivering more copies to others. There are some places we can’t restock quickly enough — the Willy Street Co-op and Pick ’n Save markets, for instance. Our staff continues to deliver papers on distribution day to save money and we also have a handful of drivers and a distribution manager who are independent contractors.
Our nonprofit status has meant new revenue opportunities. Perhaps most significantly it paved the way to membership in the Institute for Nonprofit News and allows us to participate in its annual NewsMatch fundraiser. Over the last two years this has helped us raise some $160,000 in our year-end fundraisers. We just got the good news that we are accepted into this year’s NewsMatch as well. We plan to get an early start on that this year so stay tuned.
Publisher Jason Joyce also applied for and received a grant from the city of Madison to help make our comprehensive entertainment guide more interactive and user-friendly on mobile and desktop machines. Jason, calendar editor Bob Koch and art director Tommy Washbush are working on the changes with the folks we partner with on our website.
This spring, we joined the StartingBlock entrepreneurial community, and some of us are working out of its coworking space at 821 E. Washington Ave. Through StartingBlock, we were accepted into the MadWorks startup accelerator’s summer cohort of mission-based businesses and organizations, which comes with a nice grant. While Isthmus has been around since 1976, we have been operating very much like a lean startup since rebooting as a nonprofit.
We expanded our sales team this year with the addition of Mark Clear, who, like Barbara Bolan, works part-time. Together, with Jason, the team is working with local sponsors large and small, from UW-Madison and the Madison Mallards to Tosh Washington Shoe Shine and Hoey Apothecary.
And we have been able to continue the long Isthmus tradition of working with local nonprofits, including the Dane County Humane Society, Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center, Community Shares of Wisconsin, and Boys and Girls Clubs of Dane County. Next month we are sponsoring the Good Neighbor Gathering at Brittingham Park on Sept. 10.
On the content side of things, it only makes sense to start with the covers. We continue to highlight original art by local artists and photographers on each front cover. The scenes are topical and local.
We post a story each month, “Behind the Cover,” about the artist and the illustration. The covers — printed on 35,000 copies each month, posted to Instagram and distributed via social media and our newsletters — provide significant exposure for newer illustrators and photographers and have helped build a supportive community of local artists. Their work has also been critically acclaimed.
Emily Balsley won gold in the 2022 Milwaukee Press Club awards for her cover illustration of summer construction; Madeline Vogt won silver in the same category for her illustration of the skating rink at the Tenney Park lagoon. Madeline’s illustration also won third place for best illustration in this year’s Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s awards, a national contest. Tommy, Isthmus’ art director, also won second place in that contest for his 3-D illustration last August celebrating our one-year anniversary back to print.
Tommy shepherds each cover and designs each print paper. He’s an award-winner in that latter category as well. Tommy brought home gold for best overall design for newspapers in the Milwaukee Press Club contest the last two years.
Staff writer Eric Murphy joined Isthmus in February and soon began covering the developing labor dispute at TruStage, formerly CUNA Mutual. He created a voter’s guide for the 2022 spring elections, translating a version in Spanish, and has scrutinized the extensive restructuring of the Madison Metro bus system. He spent the first two days of the launch on buses himself, talking to riders and bus drivers.
We began publishing a weekly news column online from veteran Capitol reporter Steven Walters, who often analyzes the numbers behind the headlines and makes sense out of the rhetoric. Steven also penned two cover stories, including this month’s feature on Ben Wikler, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Other cover story highlights include Marc Eisen’s piece on Epic Systems’ controversial noncompete agreements required of employees, Christina Lieffring’s story on Madison’s unaffordable housing market, and Erik Ness’ distinct take on the Enbridge pipeline dispute.
In the arts, Gwendolyn Rice has kept us in the loop on all things theater, including reviewing every single offering at American Players Theatre and racking up numerous awards in the process, including a second-place award for criticism in this year’s Association of Alternative Newsmedia contest. On the food side of things, Kyle Nabilcy won a Milwaukee Press Club award for his review of Fairchild restaurant in the “critical review category.”
Our essay section remains a reader favorite. Charles Payne, a frequent contributor, is one of our most popular essayists. And first-time contributor, Istiaq Mian, a local physician, touched many readers with his recent essay about caring for a dying patient during COVID. Later this week Istiaq will publish another essay in The New York Times’ Modern Love column.
We continue to devote considerable effort to training young journalists and take great joy in seeing the careers of former interns take off. Ta’Leah Van Sistine, who interned in the fall of 2022, was just hired as the environmental reporter for the Daily Herald in Everett, Washington, and Christy Klein, who interned in the spring of 2022, recently started a communications specialist position with UW-Milwaukee.
This summer we doubled down with two interns, Audrey Thibert and Hannah Ritvo, who work with both associate editor Linda Falkenstein and me. Audrey has covered the developing story of abortion access in the state, among other things, and Hannah has veered towards features, including this month’s Snapshot on the Barbie movie.
Thanks, as always, to our readers, donors, members, sponsors and board members for supporting our work. One of those supporters is celebrating a milestone himself this year: Vince O’Hern, who co-founded Isthmus in 1976, is turning 80. Happy birthday, Vince!
