Do we really need another newspaper "incubator"?

 By that, I mean a "support" company designed either to help start-ups, especially "HUB" start-ups, or else one to keep non-chain small newspapers already in existence from imploding.

We've got several of those already, don't we?

Well, Mike Orren from Pegasus News (old personal acquaintance) thinks we need another. So, News Oasis.

Here's a fuller description on LinkedIn:

As many know, I took a six-month sabbatical from the news biz to focus on family health matters. I also really unplugged in order to get a reset, in what I called my "halftime break."

I mostly stuck to that, but over the last few months, I've been working on a new startup, one that I'm taking out of stealth mode with this post.

News Oasis is a company dedicated to eradicating true news deserts in the U.S. within a decade. To us, that means any community that has no one covering local government and schools. By that definition, there are upwards of 4,000 such communities. We will not compete with any existing news operation that is already filling a gap.

We intend to do this with a hub-and-spoke model. The hub is a centralized, but geographically distributed home office covering editing, design, product and business development. The spokes will be small owned-and-operated community sites pre-funded by local philanthropy and sponsorship. The size of the local staff will be determined by community support.

This is early stage, with a lot going on behind the scenes. We're fundraising; building out product models; and selecting our alpha markets with an eye towards launching late this year or early next.

Sounds interesting, but what makes it different from others?

What does not make it different from others is that it's peddling pagination and other services. It otherwise appears to be for start-ups, or not-yet-started-ups. More on its About page.

As for $$$, can you really fund a start-up on $150K a year and have it launch with that as a turnkey?  The "About" mentions "a couple of reporters" and "incremental costs." Are you paying an ads person straight commission? Even then, there's a cut of ad sales. Office manager? Even in smaller areas, you're near $150K right there. Not discussed? Utilities, building rent and more. Not discussed? News Oasis' cut for pagination, etc. And, if the word pagination is being used, we're talking print, right? Not discussed is paper and ink costs, printing press fees, and postal.

I think $250K is closer to reality than $150.

And, beyond that, given that Orren, a dozen years ago, uncritically slurped up on non-convicted felon Joey Dauben, I'm not sure I'd fully trust his editorial judgment either.

Update, Aug. 28: Nieman Lab writes about grants to newspapers. It notes that, despite grantmakers' stated preferences for nonprofits, more of their money still goes to for-profits. It also notes that conflict of interest issues are rising. And, Dick Tofel notes that more money is going to, well, folks like "field building organizations," which to put it more bluntly, probably include "incubators" like the one created of Orren.