Taking Aim at the North County Times

North County San Diego will soon have a new daily at its doorsteps. Today’s Local News dubs itself as:

Our newspaper–your newspaper–is brand new in Carlsbad, Oceanside, San Marcos, Vista and Escondido, but as you can see, we’re really just your neighbors, local people working hard and having fun. today’s local news is full of colorful photographs, short articles, and information about your community that you won’t see anywhere else.

A secret source of mine, however, explained the new paper’s strategy. They understand that North Country San Diego still does not have a large enough market for two major papers and so they are trying to drive out the North County Times in Wal-Mart-like fashion. Today’s Local News is offering free advertisements to local businesses hoping that they will abandon the NC Times for cheaper advertising rates. My source tells me the paper is well funded and can run at a loss for a while.

Then, when the North County Times finally does go under for lack of ad revenue, Today’s Local News will sky rocket their advertising rates back to where the NC Times’ was and start turning a profit. It works for Wal-Mart and I can’t see why it wouldn’t work for a local paper.

Still, it will be interesting to see how the paper and website develop. So far they seem to be emphasizing fun over professionalism. (take a look at the staff bios) They could also use some help with HTML. But I do like how they emphasize interaction with the community. This is one aspect of today’s media in which the North County Times has failed miserably.