TOLEDO, Ohio — An award-winning local weekly newspaper is returning with a renewed style after a hiatus of nearly a decade.
The "rebirth" of the Toledo Free Press was officially announced Tuesday during an afternoon press conference at the Blarney Irish Pub in downtown Toledo.
The Free Press was founded in 2005 by Tom Pounds and delivered free, weekly print editions of Toledo news until its closure in April 2015. Operations went dark due to financial troubles, Pounds said at the time.
Now nine years later, the Free Press has returned as a digital-only media outlet after board member Sean Nestor spearheaded a community effort in 2020 to revive the publication.
Nestor, who is the founder of the Integrated Media Education nonprofit, initially approached Pounds to restore the archives of the Toledo Free Press.
"So we began an effort to bring back the Free Press as an archive of what we had done," Pounds said during Tuesday's press conference.
In the process, Nestor proposed bringing back the Toledo Free Press as a partnership with Toledo Integrated Media, following what he said is a trend of bringing news outlets back to life through a nonprofit. The partnership between Pounds and Nestor became the path that led to the return of the Free Press.
True to its name, the Free Press will remain free of charge.
“This is free. Everything we do is going to be free. There’s no paywall on anything we do," Pounds said. "Everything we do is free. Anyone that’s under the age of 40 has never had to pay for information in their lives, I don’t see any reason why they need to start now.”
To provide free content, Nestor said the funding would come from community support, donors and grants, and encouraged anyone able to donate to do so through the Free Press website.
“The reality is as a nonprofit we are going to be able to do as much or as little journalism as we are able to get funding for," Nestor said. "We are independent. We are not funded by one wealthy entity or family or organization. We are going to be funded by the people.”
The Free Press returned on Aug. 10 for a soft relaunch with daily digital content ahead of the formal announcement on Tuesday.
Retired military journalist and retired longtime Toledo Blade photojournalist Lori King was hired in June as editor-in-chief of the Free Press at Nestor's suggestion, she said. King joined Pounds and Nestor for Tuesday's press conference.
King discussed her return from retirement and objectives that the Toledo Free Press has committed to the community, like journalism education.
The Free Press was awarded grant funding to establish a paid journalism internship program, which King said is currently in development. The internship program will include high school and college students.
"We have a commitment to train and mentor the next generation of journalists," King, who has been an adjunct multimedia professor at four different universities, said.
The Free Press will also launch a news literacy program in a few months, King said. The program, which King described as something she is very committed to and proud of, will involve going to senior citizen centers, schools and businesses to teach citizens about news literacy and how to know what is real and what is not in the context of today's news.
"We have a big problem right now of news distrust. We distrust our news sources, and we're in trouble. Because a free, robust press is the cornerstone of our democracy," King said. "So that’s why I came back out of retirement, so we can help build that back, the trust in our local media."
To read more from the Toledo Free Press, visit toledofreepress.com.
WTOL 11 is a proud media partner of the Toledo Free Press.
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