How a Missouri chamber used outsourcing to prevent three towns from becoming news deserts

When the Lexington Area Chamber of Commerce learned last fall that three Lafayette County newspapers might shut down if a buyer was not found, Executive Director Jeff Banhart faced a decision few chamber leaders ever expect to make: step in or watch the communities lose their primary source of local news.

“One of my board members who works part-time for the newspaper came and said, I need you to know that they’re planning on selling the newspaper, and if they don’t have a buyer by the end of December, they’re going to close,” Banhart said. “And we had a discussion on how impactful that would be.”

The newspapers — The Lexington News, Higginsville Advance and Santa Fe Times News — serve different corners of Lafayette County. Banhart quickly realized saving just one would not be enough. “If we don’t buy the third newspaper, the entire eastern third of Lafayette County will have no news representation,” he said.

For Banhart, the issue went beyond business. “So many of these communities are tied to their local news and their identity is tied to their newspaper,” he said. “It’s all about serving the community.”

Local ownership, local mission

Banhart was clear from the beginning that ownership by the chamber would not mean political control. “No matter what my political opinion is or what your political opinion is, if the voices aren’t heard, then people can’t make up their mind,” he said. “Just put it out there and let people decide.”

He stressed the importance of separating opinion from reporting and restoring traditional civic engagement tools. “We need to have a place for opinions. It used to be called an editorial page, right? And used to be letters to the editor,” he said. “That’s how you’re going to get the local citizens to express their opinion and buy into the fact that the newspaper is a viable option again.”

But while the civic mission was clear, the operational reality was daunting.

The business problem

“I am not that person because I’ve never run a newspaper,” Banhart admitted. “I know enough to know that it’s not just writing the story. There’s a whole bunch of pieces that go on behind it.”

Those pieces included printing, billing, accounts receivable, circulation systems, website management and digital infrastructure. “We would have to find somebody to do the printing. We have to find somebody to do the bookkeeping and all the back end. We have to find somebody to do this. We have to change what our web presence is right now,” he said. “It would end up being seven or eight different companies that we would have to go into business with.”

Time was short. “I found out about this in the middle of October, and it was not until the first week of December that I had enough hard data to say, we can do this,” he said.

The breakthrough came when Banhart connected with CherryRoad Technologies, a company that has spent the past several years acquiring newspapers and building centralized operational systems.

Infrastructure already built

“We’ve spent the last handful of years buying newspapers and building centralized infrastructure to handle all of these business operations for those papers,” said Lee Bachlet, Senior Vice President of Growth & Innovation at CherryRoad.

Bachlet describes the core of a newspaper simply: “The primary local functionalities of a newspaper are local sales and local stories,” he said. “Everything else can and should be centralized when you have scale.”

As CherryRoad built that infrastructure for its own titles, it realized it could serve independent owners as well. “There are so many of these small-town community papers that are for sale,” Bachlet said. “We can’t buy them all. And too many of them are closing.”

He believes strongly that “the very best ownership model is a local ownership model,” but acknowledged that local groups often lack the systems and experience to manage the back office.

“We’ve got the infrastructure to help them do that,” Bachlet said. “Here’s a local organization that knows they need to keep their local papers alive, and here we are with the infrastructure to help them do that.”

CherryRoad now provides managed business operations to both small-town weeklies and larger organizations.

“We’re working at this point with large organizations, small organizations, local-owned, corporate-owned,” Bachlet said. “In this industry, as challenged as we all are, we have to work together.”

Would it have happened without outsourcing?

When asked whether the chamber would have moved forward without an outsourced solution, Banhart was candid. “I’m not sure that this would have actually gotten off the ground because it was so daunting,” he said.

Instead of juggling multiple vendors, the chamber opted for a largely integrated approach. “If we don’t go with CherryRoad, we have to find somebody to do the printing… bookkeeping… web presence,” he said. “And make sure that they all play well together.”

He acknowledged that even with the partnership, the transition has not been simple. “Several times I’ve said, can we just do the nuclear option and just not do any of this,” he said. “It just has been very, very frustrating.”

Still, his outlook remains optimistic. “Very optimistic,” he said. “We’ve already had a couple of conversations about what’s the next step to make it more efficient and better, make it a better service for our community.”

A replicable model?

Could this model work elsewhere? “I think it is,” Banhart said, though he cautioned that “every instance is different.” He urged other chambers to examine what happens if their paper disappears. “If we let this newspaper go, what’s our alternative?” he asked. “Do they have to then go vie for their local metropolitan area and try to find someplace that will give them some coverage?”

He believes community identity is at stake. “I know there’s lots of these small towns out here that are drying up and blowing away because they lose their identity, they lose their connection, people move out,” he said. “There are some fantastic places and fantastic people out here in flyover country.”

For Bachlet, the model represents a broader shift in how local journalism can survive. “If CherryRoad has a secret sauce, if we have a distinct advantage, it’s the fact that we’re at heart a tech firm,” he said. “We combine two worlds in a way that few do.”

The chamber owns the newspapers. The reporting stays local. The sales remain local. But the operational backbone is centralized.

In Lafayette County, three newspapers that might have disappeared are still printing, still reporting and still connecting their communities — not because a large chain stepped in, but because a local civic organization found a way to say yes, backed by infrastructure it did not have to build alone.

About CherryRoad Technologies

CherryRoad Technologies, founded in 1983, is a national technology and media company built on the belief that smart infrastructure strengthens communities. With more than 40 years of experience — including over three decades as an award-winning Oracle partner — CherryRoad combines enterprise-level technology expertise with hands-on operational support. Its Media Division leverages that technical backbone to provide managed business operations, digital infrastructure, circulation systems, hosting, cloud services and back-office support for community news organizations nationwide.

For more information about CherryRoad’s Managed Business Operations services, contact Lee Bachlet, Senior Vice President of Growth & Innovation at CherryRoad Technologies, at LBachlet@cherryroad.com or visit CherryRoad.com.