We are announcing the imminent launch of a crowdfunding effort to restore the home delivery of the Falls Church News-Press to every household address in the City of Falls Church.

The difficult decision to cease carrier home deliveries of the paper, something we’d done since our inception in March 1991 until this past year, was due to financial constraints. While shifting to delivery to 143 bulk sites in the City and its environs has not led to a significant decline in readership, it has nonetheless affected the impact of the newspaper on the local community in ways we hope to overcome with this new campaign.

We are proud of this newspaper’s record of service to the community of Falls Church over these almost three dozen years, and are determined to continue our seminal role informing and advising as many folks as possible in the Little City. Together with our help, we’ve come a long way over this period, with a school system that is second to none, and an array of community services and quality of life enhancements, excellent governance and levels of volunteer citizen participation extending virtually from cradle to grave that have turned Falls Church into the kind of shiny jewel that sparkles as a model for the whole world to emulate.

In this context, unlike the current rave for online products driven solely by an obsession with “click bait” and algorithms (controlled by somebody else), the News-Press remains committed most fundamentally to our print product, a tactile, inky newspaper that readers can wrinkle, underline and draw on, fold and stick in a pocket, mull over and quote to a friend or foe, a place where they can read it later, or again and again if necessary, clip and post on a bulletin board or paste into a scrapbook, and ultimately, hang onto and thereby avoid some tyrant’s decision to make stuff disappear by pulling a plug, if it were to come to that.

These times are critical, and you hardly need us telling you that. Quality, reliable and responsible communication is more vital than ever, as was stressed over and over at last week’s Falls Church City Council candidate’s forum at the American Legion hall. We’re here for you as we always have been on that score. But as the regional economy suffers from the current federal administration’s irresponsible cuts and layoffs, retailers are finding it increasingly difficult to stay in business, much less to advertise their wares in our newspaper at the revenue levels needed for us to do our job effectively. It is going to take the community as a whole weighing in. 

While it is administratively and otherwise prohibitive to charge the public for individual papers, a collective effort, ideally one also supported to a modest extent by local tax dollars, can make it work over the long haul. We are hopeful you, our readers, will contribute generously to making this happen. Details will be in next week’s paper and online.