Publications in the Inland Northwest have been sprouting or reemerging from hiatus in recent years, fulfilling a need within their respective niches, editors and owners say. 

The trend also is emerging in the wake of a hole left by the apparent shuttering of Spokane Coeur d'Alene Living Magazine, which was arguably the most prominent glossy publication in Spokane for around 20 years. Bozzi Media Inc. published its most recent issue last spring, just over two years after the deaths of owners Emily and Vince Bozzi, and announced last August that it was pausing publication. 

Despite the industrywide trend across the country that is seeing mass layoffs from large establishments, Lilac City’s upstart magazines and newspapers are pushing forth with their respective publications and funding their projects through distinct business models that incorporate and often go beyond traditional advertising space revenue, while also straying away from conventional journalism standards in some instances. 

Inland Northwest publications include Trending Northwest, The Black Lens, Beneath Your Beautiful, and Northwest Aerospace News Magazine. 

Owners of those publications also are hoping that their innovative business models can set the stage for nationwide franchising, or for others to replicate within their communities. 

Melissa Berry, 36, co-editor-in-chief and co-owner of Trending Northwest LLC, says she and co-owner and co-editor-in-chief, Erin Peterson, 39, saw the importance of multimedia as a source of revenue. 

“Multimedia is key,” she says. “If you’re only doing print, I would be worried because we have seen so much success with multimedia, including YouTube and podcast sales as well. There is a path to profitability … you have to be a jack-of-all-trades where you have to be everywhere.”

Trending Northwest garners revenue streams in a layered multimedia approach that uses a mix of advertising revenue from regional sponsors, and sponsored content from brand partnerships. It receives revenue from social media accounts, such as Facebook and Instagram, and is growing its YouTube page to become profitable, says Peterson. It also earns revenue from digital media, such as the Trending Northwest podcast and the digital magazine Trendingnorthwest.com. The quarterly print issue of Trending launched in January 2023 and has a circulation of 7,000. Online, Trending receives 39,000 visitors per month, says Berry.

Trending Northwest became profitable last month, Berry and Peterson say, but they declined to disclose the company’s projected revenue.

Peterson says the Federal Trade Commission has clear rules regarding how a business or individual can earn revenue from social media accounts. The duo say they are constantly referring to the guidelines, as they can change from time to time.

“Essentially, it’s disclosing whether you have a financial, employment, personal, or family relationship with the brand in some way,” she says. “You can either say paid partnership or brand partnership and their name … placed prominently in the first three lines or paragraph.”

Peterson says brand partnerships include Evan Stowell Restaurants, the Davenport Hotel, and the Coeur d’Alene Resort, but also include partnerships with many nonprofits that seek to get word out about their events.

“Even paying for Google ads, you’re kind of just shooting into the ether and hoping to make some kind of impact,” says Berry. “It’s difficult to control who sees that.”

Peterson and Berry both have media backgrounds from distinct publications. Peterson is a former food and travel writer for Spokane Coeur d’Alene Living, and Berry worked for an online media startup. 

Peterson says that creating Trending Northwest Magazine was a way to fill a hole left by the closure of Coeur d’Alene Living.

“We just knew that the community would still need a publication that would celebrate the best of the region and get people excited about living in the Northwest and give them a resource for places they hadn’t necessarily visited on their own and amplify businesses doing it right,” says Peterson.  

Berry and Melissa say they hope to franchise Trending Northwest in other locations nationwide. Berry, for example, is a native of Tucson, Arizona, and hopes to create a Trending Southwest.

The Black Lens, founded by the the social activist Sandy Williams, relaunches today, Feb. 1, says Natasha Hill, who has been selected as the newspaper’s interim editor. The Black Lens also will be included as an insert in the Spokesman-Review daily newspaper on the first Sunday of every month, starting on Sunday, Feb. 4, she says.

The last issue of the Black Lens was published in January of 2022. Then the publication was put on hiatus while Williams focused on her work as the executive director of the Carl Maxey Center. She had planned to relaunch the paper in January of 2023, but was killed in a plane crash the preceding September.

The independent community newspaper was founded in January 2015 with a focus on the news, events, people, and issues about the African American community. 

To continue Williams’s legacy, the paper received community support from families and businesses that assisted in forming the Sandy Williams Black Lens Fund in May 2023. Donors to that fund include the Williams family, the Seattle-based Inatai Foundation, the Innovia Foundation, Premera Blue Cross, and Elsa Distelhorst. Recently, more community members and businesses have also made notable contributions to the paper such as No-Li Brewery of Spokane, which donated $10,000 last month.

Hill, who is an entertainment lawyer and became the paper’s editor in November, says the grant money from the community will supplement advertising revenue.

 “With community-owned journalism … it allows for ad revenue to be supplemented with sponsorships and grant funds that feed this need and for there to be a perspective from the community and for the community as opposed to mainstream or corporate America,” says Hill. 

The Black Lens will be based at Gonzaga University and receive production assistance from the Spokesman-Review, but it will be an independent entity in terms of reporting and editing. Hill says she will initially search for and hire a full-time race and equity reporter as a grant-funded position, as well as work with freelancers. In addition to having a wider circulation, the nonprofit newspaper has a new website in which it will have regular updates, breaking news, and events. Previously, the paper uploaded a PDF copy of the paper onto its website, but the new website has done away with that model and is more user-friendly, says Hill.

The long-term goal is for the Black Lens to serve as a model that can be replicated into more nonprofit community-owned papers, such as a Muslim Lens, a Latino Lens, and a Jewish Lens, says Hill.

“There’s a lot of things that community-led journalism can do to bring community together and go beyond mainstream reporting,” says Hill. “Because when you’re in a predominantly white place, you’re going to get predominantly white-led, white-dominant mainstream media.”

Hara Allison, 56, is a Post Falls-based photographer and graphic designer who first dreamed of starting her own magazine 25 years ago but was deterred by expensive publishing fees. In October of 2022, however, she launched her first issue of Beneath Your Beautiful magazine through the Palo Alto, California-based digital publishing platform, Issuu Inc., which also provides a print-on-demand service that Allison’s readers can opt into.

Beneath Your Beautiful is under the umbrella of Allison’s design company, Studio H Creative, and has 1,200 monthly readers. It is about 100 pages and consists of artful portraits and images accompanied by stories of adversity and perseverance meant to inspire the reader, says Allison.

"I've gotten very positive feedback," she says. "It's like an updated Chicken Soup for the Soul (publication)."

Each magazine costs $29.99, of which Allison makes about a $6 profit. The magazine, which is published every two months and has been fully self-funded, received its first ad sponsor for its most current issue from Julie Shephard, of Spokane-based Integrity Insurance Solutions LLC. Allison designed the advertisement which takes up the back cover of the magazine. With the funds, she has purchased 50 copies of Beneath your Beautiful, at cost, and will distribute the copies on Feb. 2 at Chase Gallery, where her photography also will be on display, she says.

Allison says she uses the digital platform Kavyar, a Rochester, New York-based company in which artists, photographers, and models can submit their work, find a publisher, and get published. She’s been using the platform for several years to publish her work before becoming a publisher herself. While some publishers charge contributors to be published, Allison says she doesn't pay or charge contributors for their work. Rather, she chooses what aligns with the mission of the magazine and provides a PDF copy and online viewing privileges to the contributor. 

Dean Cameron launched Northwest Aerospace News Magazine in 2017 under the umbrella of his media company, Highlander Enterprises LLC, which does business as Top Drawer Media. A 30-year veteran of the aerospace industry, Cameron says he saw a need to report on aerospace manufacturing and has received testimonials from Boeing Co. that the company uses the magazine as a sourcing guide to find new suppliers. 

"We write about the people that make the parts that go on the airplane," he says. "We're basically a giant networking vehicle."

The magazine has a worldwide circulation of 10,000 and prints six issues per year, he says. The magazine is funded through ad sales and receives revenue from video production for manufacturing companies, he says. 

In January 2023, Cameron launched a second magazine geared toward junior high students called Let's Go Aerospace! That magazine is being funded through grants. Cameron is working with a local school district to distribute the magazine and hopes to distribute it eventually to kids all over Washington. 

"The long-term goal is to make an impact in the industry, currently and in the future," he says.