MEDFORD, Ore. (Sep. 10, 2026) — After more than 15 years, Medford Alert News is embarking on an important new chapter — one focused on paving a sustainable path for our future.
For the past 11+ months, our board has been working behind the scenes to develop a plan that will allow Medford Alert News to continue providing the news and information our community relies on.
Since our local founding in August 2011, Medford Alert News has been 100% independently run and operated. That means we have never been owned or controlled by an out-of-area company or multistate media conglomerate that can dictate how we cover local, regional or state news. We believe that independence is one of our greatest strengths.
But there is another side to being completely local and independent: We don’t have the financial backing of a large corporation when times are lean.
Medford Alert News operates primarily through a combination of reader donations, business and organizational sponsorships, advertising and the hundreds of hours our staff graciously volunteers each year.
Last year, Medford Alert News generated more than 27 million views across our platforms. That number demonstrated just how large and engaged our audience has become.
This year, with nearly four months still remaining, we have already surpassed last year’s total.
And yet, for the first time in more than four years, Medford Alert News currently has no active sponsors.
At the moment, we are operating primarily on the limited third-party advertising revenue generated by our website, a small amount of social media revenue and the countless volunteer hours contributed by our staff.
Why are we telling you this?
Simple: Transparency.
Over the years, we have watched larger and more established local news organizations shut down or disappear. We don’t want Medford Alert News to become the next one — especially when our audience data continues to show record-breaking readership, views and engagement.
The Plan:
We are currently working with a local website management and development company on a major redesign and modernization of the Medford Alert News website.
The goal is to create a faster, cleaner and significantly improved experience for our readers while building a more sustainable financial model for the organization.
As part of that redesign, we plan to eliminate third-party advertising from the website and instead display a very limited amount of advertising from local, regional and state sponsors.
However, because of the tremendous amount of traffic our website receives, our monthly operating costs will increase substantially. The website redesign and development itself is expected to cost approximately $10,000.
So, we’re considering a different approach:
Let our readers decide the future of Medford Alert News.
The proposed model would introduce a subscription-based website that would allow readers to access, read, share and interact with a set number of articles for free before being prompted to subscribe.
We understand that subscriptions aren’t ideal for everyone. That’s why, if we move forward with this model, our goal is to make the subscription as affordable as possible.
Based on our research of comparable local, regional and state news organizations, we intend to offer the most affordable local news subscription available.
And because Medford Alert News is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, qualifying subscription contributions are generally tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Ultimately, the equation is pretty simple:
If enough readers subscribe, Medford Alert News will continue to grow, expand our coverage and build for the future.
If they don’t, that’s OK, too.
The market will have spoken, and every journey eventually has an ending.
But before any decisions are finalized, we wanted to bring you — our readers — behind the scenes and let you know what is happening.
Medford Alert News has been part of this community for more than 15 years. We’ve covered breaking news, fires, floods, elections, community events, local businesses, public safety and countless stories that matter to the Rogue Valley and beyond.
We’ve done it locally. We’ve done it independently. And we’ve done it because we believe local communities deserve local news by local people.
Thank you for every view, share, comment, donation, sponsorship and word of support over the past 15+ years.
We sincerely hope you’ll continue on this journey with us as we work toward serving you for another 15 years.
Interested in partnering with Medford Alert News?
We are actively seeking local businesses, events, organizations and companies interested in sponsorship opportunities and helping support independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit local journalism.
Please reach out to us to discuss partnership opportunities.
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