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A toaster is a respected community member who stands up to celebrate
the guest of honor. Who does The Toaster honor? The working mother,
the backyard barbecue chef, the dedicated high-school teacher, the social
worker, the block-club leader, the union steward, the gay father, the
organic gardener, the single 30-something tired of meat-market bars,
the faith-based activist, the movie buff, the theater fan, the restaurant
lover, the newcomer from Grand Rapids or Gary or Grenada. . . .
Put simply, the guest of honor is you. The Toaster celebrates
you. A toaster is also an important part of the kitchen. We all rely
on one to crisp things up. The Toaster puts the heat on milquetoast
politicians, local corporations that turn huge profits without giving
back to the community, and municipal technocrats that refuse to tackle
suburban sprawl. The Toaster, indeed, is no ordinary kitchen appliance.
It shines a light into the dark corners of local school districts, offers
sustainable-living tips, and locates the town's most interesting sing-alongs,
salsa dance lessons, and noodle houses. As the Twin Cities area diversifies,
The Toaster builds connections between cultures. Defying the forces
of alienation and atomization, it forges new understandings, friendships,
and political alliances. And The Toaster never sells out to a competitor.
What's the Toaster?
The Toaster is a set of local media projects that debuts
as a state-of-the-art Web site accompanied by regular e-mail and fax
"broadcasts" to thousands of recipients. Supplementing these formats,
The Toaster appears two months later as a weekly tabloid newspaper.
After eight months of publication, the paper reaches 32 pages and a
weekly circulation of 55,000. All four Toaster projects reflect three
bedrock principles:
- Our Content Matters. Whether it's a hard-hitting investigative
report, an interactive reader exchange on a sore topic, a satirical
news story, a stunning photograph, relationship advice, or a preview
of the weekend's quirky entertainment for families, The Toaster's
bottom line is building bridges between cultures in our rapidly diversifying
metropolitan area.
- Our Standards Are Professional. Our text is clear, credible,
concise, and engaging. As for design and typography, regardless of
the medium (Web, e-mail, fax, or newsprint), The Toaster is consistent
and attractive. Our photographs and illustrations are striking. While
we reserve significant space for community contributors from all walks
of life, The Toaster is run by a permanent staff of editorial, artistic,
technical, administrative, and advertising professionals.
- Our Ownership Is Non-Profit, Decentralized, and Local. Registered
with the state as a non-profit corporation, The Toaster is overseen
by a board of directors, an advisory council that represents the diversity
of the community, and a large membership base (our articles of incorporation
and bylaws are available upon request). Under this structure, editors
and writers answer to the community, not profit-driven owners. Unlike
the Twin Cities Reader, moreover, The Toaster is never sold to the
highest bidder or closed by a competitor. And, unlike nearly every
other major media outlet in town, The Toaster reinvests all surplus
revenue back into the project. This structure is a national model
among the nation's 110 "alternative" weeklies, nearly all of which
are owned by individuals or corporate chains.
How Does the Toaster Succeed?
In this highly competitive media market, it's not enough
to have strong editorial ideals, high production values, and nonprofit
ownership. The Toaster flourishes as a business.
- Our strategy is, first, to develop solid and distinct editorial
content and, second, to remain flexible as electronic communication
revolutionizes the media landscape. This means devoting significant
resources to the Web, fax, and e-mail formats from the very beginning.
It also means starting the newspaper small to keep our printing bills
and staffing manageable. And we launch various phases of the project
only when we have secured the necessary capital.
- We raise that capital with a far-reaching and effective community
campaign that protects donors from squandering their contribution.
- After a brief start-up period, The Toaster runs primarily on advertising
revenue. Our study of media in the Twin Cities and other large U.S.
markets (available upon request) helped us position The Toaster to
attract a large and loyal readership and, as a result, a robust advertising
base. We hire a staff of advertising professionals, beginning with
an experienced manager. Modest budget projections show Toaster advertising
creating positive cash flow within a year of paid-staff operations.
- As The Toaster hits stride toward the end of its first year, we
develop side businesses related to Web and print publishing. All of
this "earned income" supports further growth of the media projects.
- The Toaster runs on effective planning and management. The board
hires a publisher to coordinate the rest of the staff. We institute
professional accounting systems. We adhere to a detailed budget and
business plan (both available upon request). And, as The Toaster grows,
we periodically update a strategic plan. Yes, we publish plenty of
eclectic columns, satire, and humor. But when it comes to our business,
we're dead serious.
Why Now?
The Toaster concept was catalyzed by a flurry of corporate
buy-outs that further homogenized the Twin Cities media market, the
nation's 14th largest, and that concentrated ownership into the hands
of out-of-town corporate giants. In February 1997, New York-based Stern
Publishing gobbled locally owned City Pages, adding it to the nation's
largest chain of "alternative" weeklies. Just a month later, Stern announced
its purchase and liquidation of its principal local competitor, the
Twin Cities Reader. As the sole major weekly, City Pages has freely
increased its advertising girth without adding significant space to
its news hole--the paper's ad-to-editorial ratio is more lopsided than
ever. And its editorial bite is already softening, as if there were
something alternative about page after page of ad-pandering restaurant
listings or lengthy feature stories on the Twins, Vikings, and Timberwolves.
Under the new regime, City Pages' longtime publisher,
associate publisher, editor, and arts/music editor have all resigned.
Stern's response to the exodus is revealing--the new publisher comes
from the paper's advertising department and the new editor from a chain-owned
"alternative" weekly in Miami. Corporate mergers and out-of-town raids
have also devastated the area's daily newspapers. The Twin Cities was
a four-newspaper town until the late 1970s. Now, without any serious
competition, the Saint Paul Pioneer Press functions primarily as a cash
register for Miami-based Knight-Ridder Inc. and a stepping stone for
the corporation's national pool of editorial and advertising trainees.
Across the river, the Sacramento, California-based McClatchy
Newspapers Inc. purchased Cowles Media Co., owner of the Star Tribune,
in March 1998. The Strib's monopoly status in the west-metro area was
reflected in Cowles' staggering $1.4 billion price tag. Even before
the sale, the paper's 350 editorial employees set local standards for
collective laziness and elite-serving reporting. With out-of-town ownership,
things will get only worse. On the airwaves and the Internet, meanwhile,
the picture is no prettier. Nearly every major radio, television, and
Web outlet in town is now owned by the likes of Disney, Gannett, or
Microsoft. The distant corporations force their Twin Cities subsidiaries
to prioritize profits over community interests. This media concentration
trivializes public discourse, erodes civil society, and threatens democracy.
Toaster founders discovered widespread community dissatisfaction
with the local media in their summer 1997 interviews of 45 grass-roots
community leaders. One after another, the activists complained of uninformed
and insensitive reporting, political horse-race chatter, cookie-cutter
predictability, celebrity gossip, and a deafening monoculture that ignores
or attacks city life. Such content flies in the face of the area's rapid
diversification. Minnesota has the nation's fastest growing Latino population,
according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The Twin Cities also has one of
the nation's largest urban Native American communities and rapidly growing
populations of Asian and African descent. And the state has one of the
nation's highest rates of interracial marriages. There's so much going
on, and no one is covering it.
What Color Is the Toaster?
Our editorial content is:
- Multivoiced. We discover, train and mentor writers from all walks
of life. We are especially committed to publishing members of communities
underrepresented in mainstream media.
- Populist. Our tone contrasts with the incessantly cynical, hipper-than-thou
and, ultimately, individualist bent of City Pages. While relentlessly
exposing corruption, hypocrisy, power dynamics, and local human-rights
abuses, The Toaster goes the extra mile to reveal all things wonderful
and geeky, comical and heartbreaking, innovative and hopeful. Toward
this end, we discover and publish plain-talking local writers. Our
models include radio commentator Jim Hightower, novelist Alice Walker,
columnist Katha Pollitt, film director Michael Moore, oral historian
Studs Terkel, and playwright August Wilson.
- Motivating. It's not just our tone that's populist. We provide tools
for our readers to participate in their community. Instead of burying
notices of activist events in tiny-font listings in the back of the
paper, we publish them prominently near relevant stories. We encourage
readers to contact public and corporate officials. We even provide
the phone numbers. We help readers put democratic values into practice.
- Contextualized. Our coverage assumes reader opposition to disparities
based on class, race, sex, sexual orientation, age, ability, and so
on. For example, when covering a business development or labor dispute,
a Toaster reporter seeks the company's view but is not obsessed with
"balancing" the firm's public-relations department against a consumer
watchdog or rank-and-file unionist.
- Complex. Given these shared understandings, however, The Toaster
exposes issues in all their complexity. Our reporters explore divergent
perspectives and usually let them stand in print without slanting
the story obviously one way or another. We eschew dogma, whether concerning
political ideology, sexuality, race relations, or anything else. We
don't pretend to have all the answers.
- Satirical, Funny, Experimental. We stretch the boundaries of journalism.
Roasting friend and foe alike, even our hard news is unpredictable
and amusing.
- Easy to Read. In the tradition of George Orwell, we communicate
complex ideas using everyday words. We avoid academic pretensions
and unfamiliar terms that exclude many readers.
- Independent. We are autonomous from all political parties, interest
groups, and financial sources. We freely publish criticism of our
advertisers, funders, and political heroes.
- Minnesota-Proud. We embrace the Twin Cities, the state, and the
Midwest. Instead of trashing everything in sight--a hallmark of alternative
weeklies--we revel in the area's weirdness, beauty, and dynamism.
When we identify problems, we search for solutions.
- Brief. We keep most stories shorter than the standard alternative-weekly
fare. Single pieces rarely exceed 2,000 words, and most are much shorter.
- Clear, Consistent, Accurate. From checking facts to eliminating
redundant phrases to upholding a detailed Toaster style guide, our
editorial staff maintains the highest standards.
What's Inside the Toaster?
In The Toaster's early months, content of the Web, fax,
and e-mail versions draws largely from the newspaper. Here are the paper's
major components:
COVER: In addition to the flag ("The Toaster")
and content teasers, most covers showcase the work of local photographers.
The shots complement The Toaster's mission but rarely illustrate any
particular story in that paper. Many of the photos are black-and-white,
with spot color for the flag and teasers only.
COMMUNITY:
- Hyperlocal News. Our content concentrates on the home, neighborhood,
school, city, county, and state levels. One Toaster forte is politics
and organizing in heavily populated but largely ignored areas such
as St. Paul's east side, Minneapolis' north side, and the more diverse
inner-ring suburbs. At the same time, we learn more about the Twin
Cities by examining distant places. A story on the Minneapolis police
department, for example, may incorporate experiences from both Kansas
City and Soweto.
- Unusual Investigations. We secure special funding for exposés that
require weeks of research, document gathering, computer crunching,
interviewing, writing, editing, and lawyering. Beyond the standard
fare of alternative-weekly newspapers (easy and risk-free sniping
at politicians) our targets include the area's Fortune 500 corporations,
cults, revered non-profits, and others that generally operate free
of media scrutiny.
- Interactive Forums. We develop new multimedia arenas for reader
debate and reflection. We go beyond traditional letters-to-the-editor
sections, which allow replies to previously published pieces only.
We prioritize viewpoints underrepresented in other media.
- Civic-Minded Listings. Unlike listings in the area's other major
papers, ours go beyond entertainment to include important government
hearings, large organizing meetings, protests, fund-raising events,
and so on.
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT: Our features, previews,
reviews, and listings cover theater, film, live music, museum displays,
books, video, recordings, and happenings that interest our urban and
culturally diverse readership.
LIFE: We supplement the traditional alternative-weekly
formula--hard news and opinion followed by entertainment--with regular
features on alternative and sustainable living. These may cover parenting,
health, gardening, aging, single life, union culture, farmers' markets,
the challenges of running a small business, progressive spirituality,
nesting, sex, computers and new media, relationships, cooking and so
on. Unlike the area's newspapers and magazines, we approach issues with
a political eye, frank language, a sense of humor, and a commitment
to ecology and community responsibility.
Where's the Start-up Money Coming
From?
After a 10-month start-up period, The Toaster covers its
expenses through advertising and, eventually, other earned income. The
first year's $525,000 budget (available upon request) includes $330,000
from advertising. The difference, $195,000, is our start-up capital.
As a non-profit, we do not generate this capital by selling shares in
the corporation. Besides a very small portion from foundations, the
money comes from a carefully planned and implemented community fund-raising
campaign. First, the founders create a board of directors that includes
expertise in publishing, business and fund-raising. The board creates
an advisory council that represents community diversity. The board and
council eventually have distinct functions-the council, for example,
focuses closely on editorial content, while the board takes legal responsibility
for the project as a whole. In the early days, however, both bodies
play the same vital role in expanding The Toaster's base of start-up
donors. Members of the board and council develop a detailed database
that eventually includes hundreds and hundreds of contacts and prospective
donors. We rank the prospects according to three criteria: their financial
ability, their interest in the project, and the strength of our contact
with them. The donations themselves come in three overlapping phases
(below):
- Phase 1. We hold personal meetings with several dozen individuals
who rank high in all three criteria. These meetings secure donations
of $5,000 or more for a total of $130,000. The size of each request
and the number of prospects at each request level are based on careful
consideration. Besides providing a financial launching pad, the meetings
generate new contacts as well as ideas to flesh out the paper's editorial
and advertising content.
- Phase 2. As the newsprint version nears its launch, the
start-up capital drive shifts to smaller contributions of $500-$5,000
for a total of $40,000. We secure many of these donations through
meetings surrounding particular concerns or occupations such as health
care, organized labor, feminism, urban planning, gay rights, public-interest
law and so on. Again, the meetings multiply our contacts and help
develop editorial and advertising plans.
- Phase 3. With most of the start-up capital in the bank, we
shift toward the labor-intensive work of building The Toaster's general
membership. First, to further expand our database, we gather prospect
lists from like-minded political campaigns and non-profit organizations.
Then we reach thousands of potential members through house parties,
special events and carefully targeted mailings and faxes. Donations
in this phase range from $50 to $500 for a total of $25,000. Beyond
generating the last portion of our start-up capital, these efforts
provide a vital publicity boost in our early days. The Toaster, Incorporated,
is registered as a non-profit corporation with the state but not with
the federal government. To launch the project and finance our general
operations, we seek contributions that donors cannot claim as federally
tax-exempt. But we also accept tax-exempt contributions for charitable
and educational purposes through an associated organization recognized
under Section 501(c)(3) of the federal tax code.
Who Are the Toaster's Readers?
The Toaster readership is:
- Geographically Concentrated. Our Web, fax, and e-mail versions
reach organizations, businesses, and individuals across and beyond
the metropolitan area. But the newspaper circulation remains concentrated
in the core cities and inner-ring suburbs ("Where there's a sidewalk,
there's a Toaster.") The vast majority of our readers thus live, work,
or frequently recreate in Minneapolis or St. Paul. * Diverse. Our
readers span the full range of the area's ethnicities. They welcome
diversification instead of seeing it as a threat. Many have settled
in the area's urban core because they thrive on cultural variety.
- Committed to Community. Our readers want to discover the
differences and similarities between communities that have been geographically
and culturally segregated. They want to help build bridges, for example,
between trade unionists and former welfare recipients, among biracial
and gay families, between a neighborhood's Hmong and African American
residents, and so on.
- Environmentally Conscious. The Toaster attracts readers
who want to protect the local and global environments, and learn about
sustainable and simple living.
- Demographically Distinct. Beyond these attributes, our readers
form a discreet and valuable profile that will attract a diverse and
robust advertising base. (Details on our market position and advertising
plan are available upon request.)
Who Are the Toaster's Founders?
The Toaster founders have proven their expertise in journalism,
publishing, advertising, business, and computer systems:
- Joe Allen, a photographer, is the general manager and art
director of The Circle, named the nation's best Native American monthly
in 1997 by the Native American Journalist Association. He won a New
York Times-sponsored photo contest at the 1996 NAJA conference, an
honorable mention for best editorial at the 1995 NAJA conference,
and a 1993 McKnight/Film in the Cities photography fellowship. His
photos illustrate the children's book Four Seasons of Corn (Lerner
1997). He is a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe
- Denise Felder is a news editor of Channel 4000, the Web site
of WCCO television and radio. She is the former editor of Twin Cities
Employment Weekly and a former editorial-staff member of the Twin
Cities Reader. Her writing on entertainment and the arts has appeared
in the Twin Cities Reader, Skyway News and Dive In, an online city
guide. She has also worked for Glamour Magazine, National Public Radio,
several community newspapers and First Fridays, a social organization
for Twin Cities black professionals. Her poetry has been published
in Colors magazine and recognized by the Loft, a Minneapolis-based
writers' organization
- Michael Guest is a statewide political organizer for the
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the
treasurer of the health-care advocacy group Minnesota Citizens Organizing
and Acting Together. He has worked as development director of the
Minneapolis-based Resource Center of the Americas, and has raised
funds as a consultant with the St. Louis Park-based Mark Davy and
Associates and the New York City-based Community Counseling Service.
He co-founded the fund-raising discussion group Minnesota Society
for Grassroots Development, he frequently helps organize local electoral
campaigns, and he serves on the Walk for Justice committee of the
Headwaters Fund
- Robert Machalek is president of Machalek Communications,
Inc., a 12-year-old Richfield-based publishing firm serving six distinct
markets nationwide. He has more than 15 years experience in the publishing
field, including four as editor or publisher of nationally distributed
publications. He holds a master's degree in international relations
and international economics from the Nitze School of Advanced International
Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor's in history from
Carleton College Chip Mitchell, a print and radio journalist, is editor
of Connection to the Americas, the monthly magazine of the Resource
Center of the Americas. His reports have appeared in The Progressive,
In These Times, the Twin Cities Reader, Gay Community News, and many
other publications. In Wisconsin, he founded the biweekly Madison
Insurgent and co-edited the newspaper for four years. The Milwaukee
Press Club named one of his stories in Madison's weekly Isthmus as
the state's best investigative report of 1995. In radio, he was a
founding producer of In Our Back Yard, the evening news of Madison's
WORT-FM. His reports have aired on the Pacifica National News
- Laurel Parrott is editor of the north Minneapolis weekly
Camden Community News and the quarterly Minnesota NOW Times. A former
president of the National Organization for Women's state chapter,
she serves on the chapter's Legal Defense and Education Fund board.
She is also a Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition steering committee member,
a Women Candidate Development Coalition board member, and a Folwell
Neighborhood Association block-club leader. She has served on the
Women's Vote '96 Project steering committee, and she participated
in the United Nations' Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing,
focusing on women's economic empowerment in the global economy
- Tam Phan is a computer consultant and freelance writer for
Vietnamese newspapers in the Twin Cities, California and Washington
D.C. Most of his work addresses the activities and culture of Vietnamese
people in the United States. In 1967, he co-founded the Vietnam Features
Syndicate in Saigon. He was also a reporter and features editor for
the Vietnam Press News Agency in Saigon for 10 years. In 1974, he
studied at the International Institute of Journalism in Berlin. In
1976, he escaped Vietnam with 12 others on a small wooden boat. He
spent a month on the open sea and more than six months in a refugee
camp in the Philippines
- Kasia Polanska is a research fellow of International Women's
Rights Action Watch at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute
of Public Affairs. In California, she wrote and edited for the Spanish-English
bilingual magazines El Tecolote and Mission Life, and she reported
on immigration issues for the Courier, a publication of the Polish-American
Congress in San Francisco. She also wrote and photographed for San
Francisco State University's Prism Magazine. A native of Poland, she
spent 17 months in a refugee camp near Vienna, Austria. At Stanford
University, she earned a bachelor's degree in journalism and a master's
in Latin American studies. She speaks Polish, Spanish, English, and
Russian
- Anthony Peyton Porter, an essayist, biographer, and critic,
has written for Minnesota Public Radio, the Star Tribune, Minnesota
Parent, Performance Twin Cities, The Circle, Mpls. St. Paul, the Twin
Cities Reader, Minnesota Law and Politics, Public Art Review, and
KTCA-TV. He was founding president of S.A.S.E.: The Write Place, editor
of Colors magazine, and president of the Center for Arts Criticism.
He has authored six books for children, including Jump at de Sun:
The Story of Zora Neale Hurston (Carolrhoda Books 1992), Greg LeMond:
Premier Cyclist (Lerner Publications 1992), and Kwanzaa (Carolrhoda
Books 1991)
- Rob Ramer is a freelance journalist, computer consultant,
and co-chair of Local 13 of the National Writers Union. In publications
such as the Star Tribune, the Twin Cities Reader, and the Des Moines
Register, he has written about community issues in Minneapolis, human
rights in Guatemala, and traveling with children in Mexico. He has
started a software company, worked as a printer, and run a non-profit
that gave disadvantaged youths job skills in graphic arts and photography.
The son of Scottish and U.S. technical missionaries, he was born in
Sangli, India, and educated at a boarding school in Kodaikanal, South
India. He earned a degree in development economics from Grinnell College
in Iowa
- Alexandra Stein is a computer consultant, writer, and trained
mediator. She has co-founded two computer systems-integration firms,
a child-care center, and a non-profit supporting the democratic process
in South Africa. She serves on the board of the Minnesota-based Free
Minds Inc. and the advisory board of a national organization that
researches and educates on issues of psychological manipulation. She
also wrote a forthcoming book on her experience with totalism in a
political sect. Born in South Africa and raised in England, she has
spent her adult life in California and Minnesota, and worked on many
community and rank-and-file union newsletters.
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