The Independent expands to deliver free to Edgewood, East Mountains

• Advertisers can now reach 10,000 households monthly 
• Email newsletters provide original reporting 4 days a week

From the publisher

If you are reading this issue of The Independent at home, there is a good chance it arrived by mail. We’re making a big investment in this paper and it changes how you get your news.

Since its first issue was published 25 years ago by Wally Gordon and Thelma Bowles, The Independent, or “The Indy” as most locals call it, has been one of the leading newspapers serving communities east of Albuquerque. Today it is the last one standing (R.I.P. Estancia Valley Citizen, East Mountain Telegraph and many others). 

In 2022, The Indy was almost lost as well. The former editor and owner did the impossible and saw the paper through COVID with almost no advertisers, then asked someone new to take over. We’ve been working to grow the paper ever since.

Thanks to grants from the New Mexico Local News Fund and Press Forward, we have been able to experiment with ways to deliver more news for readers across a 4,000 square mile area with few other local news options. 

Partnerships with the Citizen Media Group, Local News Fund and the journalism program NMSU helped us bring student journalists in our newsroom to cover more stories. Reader donations and advertisers helped us hire a part-time editor, then create our first full-time reporter position. That investment in people and newsgathering is slowly paying off.

Over the past two years, our digital editions have seen huge growth. Our 4-day-a-week email editions now get more than 10,000 reads weekly, almost 5 times the reach of our print editions. Lower digital ad rates also mean local businesses can reach more readers online with us at prices cheaper than buying Facebook or Google ads – a bargain for readers and advertisers alike.

A new Indy

We are proud to serve a community that still wants a local paper, but we are not immune to the economic realities that continue to force publishers nationwide to adapt or close. Just since January, the costs to print and deliver this paper have gone up about 15%. Now, just as we go to print, new tariffs on Canadian newsprint – the source for 80% of US newspapers – threaten to add another 20%. (President Trump’s 2018 tariffs on newsprint were eventually dropped, but costs never went back down).

Add that to lower ad revenue from local advertisers and government agencies who are cutting spending too and, well, you get the picture.

That’s why, starting this month, The Indy is evolving to meet readers where they are: online for daily news and in print for features, investigative reporting and community updates that remind us why we love it here.

This and future issues of The Indy will now be mailed for free to almost 10,000 households in Edgewood and the East Mountain communities of Sandia Park and Cedar Crest during the last week of the month. Additional copies are available for free pickup in newspaper boxes and libraries across the entire East Mountains and Estancia Valley, including Madrid, Moriarty, Tijeras and Estancia. Legals and public notices are still available from our partners at nm.news. Existing paid subscribers who now receive a free issue by mail should be on the lookout for an email or letter with options to donate the remaining balance of your subscription or request a refund.

Our website and 4-day-a-week email editions are getting an upgrade, too. 

Email subscribers have already noticed that local news from the East Mountains and Edgewood (and Estancia Valley) is now online with new websites tailored for each community at edgewood.nm.news and eastmountains.nm.news. Digital subscriptions are still free, of course.

We’re also opening up our pages to community contributors who are interested in writing an occasional column on a community activity or underreported topic. (email Editor Kevin Hendricks for more info: kevin@newmexico.news)

For advertisers, the change provides a great opportunity to reach every household in three of the largest communities in our area for about ½ the cost of mailing every household themselves. 

Longtime residents have seen The Indy change with our communities and through each change The Indy has stayed committed to the idea that what happens here matters here. 

We hope you value having a local paper as much as we value making it.