A Northern Ontario publisher plans to launch more than a dozen community news websites in the United States, expanding its local journalism network with a multimillion-dollar investment from the U.S.-based Knight Foundation, which will initially co-own the outlets.
Village Media, based in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., owns and operates 27 community news sites across Ontario, as well as a few politics and business publications in the province. It currently owns a single U.S. news outlet – the SooLeader, in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. – and licenses its technology platform to partners in Canada, the U.S. and New Zealand, which together publish about another 50 websites. Most recently, it signed a licensing deal with New Zealand publisher Stuff Ltd. for 18 new publications in that country.
On Wednesday, the Miami-based Knight Foundation is set to announce a US$5-million investment that will enable Village to establish operations in 15 communities across three U.S. states, starting with Wisconsin. The media company is tentatively targeting Pennsylvania and Illinois as the other two states.
On its website, Village lists openings for 45 roles across the three states. But decisions on which markets it will ultimately enter are still being made in conversation with Knight, Village chief executive officer Jeff Elgie said in an interview.
Communities listed in Village Media's job postings
The publisher's U.S. expansion will begin in Wisconsin, with a tentative plan for Illinois and Pennsylvania to follow.
The partnership brings together a fast-growing privately owned Canadian news publisher and one of the largest philanthropic backers of journalism in the U.S. Since 2023, Knight has invested US$300-million in journalism, as part of a broader mandate to support local news, arts and civic engagement in the 26 cities and towns in which its founders, brothers John S. and James L. Knight, once published newspapers.
“Obviously, Village is not a non-profit or charity, and typically they stick in that sector,” Mr. Elgie said of the foundation. “But this is really about demonstrating sustainable models for local journalism in partnership with them.”
As part of the agreement, Knight will hold a 50-per-cent ownership stake in the outlets, but development of the markets and day-to-day operations will rest with Village. Knight will not have any editorial responsibility or oversight.
Knight CEO Maribel Pérez Wadsworth said the foundation intends to sell its stakes in the companies to local owners once the sites are financially stable, and to use those funds to enter new markets. The arrangement “speaks to the confidence that we have in Village, based on the success that they’ve already demonstrated, and what we believe is really strong potential to replicate that success in the states,” Ms. Pérez Wadsworth said.
Village previously operated two news sites in Colorado – The Longmont Leader, which it acquired from licensing partner McClatchy in 2021, and the Broomfield Leader. Village eventually merged the titles and sold the combined entity. Mr. Elgie attributes that decision to years of underinvestment in the publications, among other issues.
In Canada, Village has a positive track record of identifying markets that can sustain its free, ad-supported websites. Since its inception in 2013, it has never shuttered any of the Canadian properties it owns.
That is notable in a country where more than 600 local outlets have closed or merged since 2008, including more than 60 digital publications, according to data from the Local News Research Project. Canada’s largest publishers – including Postmedia, Glacier Media, Black Press, TC Transcontinental and Torstar – have closed dozens of publications over that period. Although roughly 430 outlets have launched since 2008, more than a third of them subsequently closed.
American publishers have faced similar challenges, leading to what are known as “news deserts.” Nearly 40 per cent of local newspapers in the U.S. closed between 2005 and 2025, according to Northwestern University’s State of Local News report, “leaving 50 million Americans with limited or no access to a reliable source of local news.” Publishers in both Canada and the U.S. have struggled to adapt to shifting consumer habits and the loss of traditional advertising revenue to global tech giants and social media platforms.
With its free, ad-supported model for community news, Village has had success where many other publishers have struggled. The modern news ecosystem is built on the presumption that massive scale is typically required to make ad-supported models financially viable. The alternative is to charge a subscription fee for content that a smaller, more engaged audience feels is worth paying for.
Mr. Elgie believes there are markets in which the model’s economics still work well, as long as there is sufficient community engagement. “As much as everyone talks about the ad business being challenged, there’s demonstrably much more available local revenue than what we could ever hope to get out of subscription in these markets,” he said.
None of the U.S. markets in which Village has advertised job openings as part of its initial plans with Knight has a population of more than 115,000. These communities could still be attractive targets for publishers eyeing new markets, said Zachary Metzger, director of the State of Local News Project at Northwestern University’s Medill School, in an e-mail.
Mr. Metzger noted that Wisconsin, Illinois and Pennsylvania have a relatively high number of outlets. However, access is heavily concentrated in large urban areas. “In the smaller and mid-size cities that Village Media is looking at, closures and mergers have often left audiences with limited choices for local news.”
A handful of foreign news organizations such as The Guardian and the Financial Times have gained a foothold in the U.S. over the years, Mr. Metzger said. But these are global players with a focus on national affairs and finance. “Local outlets from foreign organizations have historically been much rarer,” he said.
Despite partnering with a Canadian company, Ms. Pérez Wadsworth said, “we see this very much as a U.S. investment, because the whole point is that we’re bringing what we believe could be a model with real traction and potential to help solve some of the challenges, especially in the small and mid-sized market part of the ecosystem.”
Village Media is majority owned by Mr. Elgie and members of his family. Its shareholders include Vancouver-based Glacier Media and two private investors from Sault Ste. Marie.
