Episode notes
Manassas used to have a newspaper you could hold. Then the presses went quiet. A volunteer crew is trying to put one back in people’s hands.
Uriah Kiser sits down with Amalfi Arias, six weeks into resurrecting The Manassas Journal — the name that was, for generations, the record of the city and western Prince William. Kiser learned the business at the old Manassas Journal Messenger. That paper and Woodbridge’s Potomac News were merged; the combined News & Messenger printed its last edition in 2012 after Warren Buffett’s company bought the chain and closed this one. Kiser launched Potomac Local in 2010 when the layoffs and press shutdowns were already obvious. The old Smoketown Road bunker across from Potomac Mills is a doctor’s office now.
Arias wants the record back: city council, school board, and the little committees — trash, sewer, beautification — where a handful of people make decisions most residents never hear. He also covers Unity Reed, Brentsville, Patriot, and Manassas Park because that is one set of roads and schools. The paper is not profitable. A weekly print subscription is $100 a year, which he says basically covers printing. Volunteer drivers are handing copies to neighbors they have not seen in decades. Advertisers have asked. Follow-up is still thin. For-profit or nonprofit is a question for a later interview.
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