The Daily Memphian

About The Daily Memphian

The Daily Memphian is a nonprofit digital-only daily news site covering Memphis and the Mid-South. Launched in September 2018, it was created to fill gaps left by the contraction of the city's legacy newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, with in-depth investigative and community journalism. The outlet employs a newsroom of about 40 journalists covering local government, business, crime and justice, education, arts, sports, and neighborhoods. It is unusual among nonprofit news startups for relying on paid subscriptions behind a paywall as its primary path to sustainability, supplemented by philanthropy. Its CEO is Eric Barnes, who is also publisher of The Memphis Daily News group of community newspapers.

Founding and Launch

The Daily Memphian was announced at a July 2018 press conference at the FedExForum and launched that fall as a nonprofit organization. CEO Eric Barnes stressed that it was a whole separate entity from The Daily News, the business and legal-affairs paper he published — reporters would come over from The Daily News, The Commercial Appeal, and The Memphis Business Journal, but the new outlet would be its own newsroom with its own mission. Its first editor-in-chief was James Overstreet. The launch was explicitly a response to the shrinking of The Commercial Appeal under corporate ownership: Barnes argued that Memphis deserved locally focused journalism with the resources to do serious, sustained reporting, and that a nonprofit, subscription-supported digital daily could provide it.

Eric Barnes and Leadership

Eric Barnes is the CEO of The Daily Memphian. He is also publisher of a group of community newspapers in Tennessee, a former president of the Tennessee Press Association, and the current president of the American Court & Commercial Newspapers. For ten years he hosted "Behind the Headlines," a weekly news show on Memphis's PBS station focused on local government, business, and the community, and since 2019 he has hosted "The Sidebar," a podcast on The Daily Memphian — also a radio show on local station WYXR — covering arts, culture, and more. Barnes is a novelist and published short story writer with a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University and a bachelor's degree from Connecticut College. He has been an outspoken advocate of the subscription model, arguing that people paid for news for decades and can pay for it now.

Nonprofit Model and Startup Funding

The Daily Memphian is operated by Memphis Fourth Estate Inc., a nonprofit organization. Its startup was made possible by a $6.7 million donation from the Greater Memphis Community Foundation, with additional support from local organizations such as the Assisi Foundation and the First Horizon Foundation, and from the Lenfest Institute nationally. In its partial first year of 2018, the nonprofit reported $6.7 million in funding against $2.2 million in expenses. But Barnes has consistently argued that philanthropy is not the long-term primary revenue source: the organization was designed from the start to diversify revenue and move toward sustainability through subscriptions, advertising, sponsorships, and events, with individual donations growing every year as a supplement.

Newsroom and Staff

The Daily Memphian launched with about 25 staff members and grew quickly to roughly 40 journalists plus freelancers, making it one of the largest digital-only newsrooms in Tennessee. Early hires included editor-in-chief James Overstreet and columnist Geoffrey Calkins, a well-known Memphis sports columnist, alongside reporters drawn from The Commercial Appeal and other local outlets; Ronnie Ramos later joined as executive editor and Elaine Sung as sports editor. The newsroom covers city hall, county government, business, education, health, the courts, and neighborhoods, with enhanced sports coverage anchored by Calkins. Two-thirds of expenditures in its early years went to salaries, reflecting Barnes's belief that the product is the journalism and that the journalism requires reporters.

The Paywall Strategy

Unlike most nonprofit news startups, which are free to readers, The Daily Memphian put up a paywall from the start. It launched in September 2018 at a subscription rate of $7 per month with the first month free, later raising the price to $11 per month and eventually to $99 per year or $12.99 per month. By 2021 the outlet reported nearly 17,000 subscribers renewing at a rate of 90 percent, with reader revenue contributing the bulk of a roughly $5 million annual budget. Barnes has opposed discounting subscriptions, arguing that price is not the main reason readers leave. The paywall strategy was a deliberate bet: that enough Memphians valued serious local journalism to pay for it, and that subscription revenue would prove more durable than foundation grants alone.

Coverage Philosophy

The Daily Memphian's coverage philosophy emphasizes depth over speed. On crime, for example, Barnes said the outlet would not duplicate the crime-blotter coverage available elsewhere; instead it would cover trends in crime, juvenile justice, the district attorney's office, and the public defender — "with depth and complexity and some follow through." The same approach applies across beats: explanatory and investigative reporting on local government, business, and education rather than quick hits. The outlet has connected with readers through stories like its coverage of the proposed replacement of East Memphis's elegant Century Building with a car wash, a story that crystallized readers' anxieties about development. Columnists and opinion writers, including Calkins, give the site a voice beyond straight news.

Podcasts and Multimedia

The Daily Memphian produces up to nine podcasts a week from its downtown Memphis headquarters, covering sports, food, politics, arts, and culture. "The Sidebar," hosted by Barnes, focuses on arts and culture and airs as a radio show on WYXR. The podcast operation grew out of Barnes's experience with "Behind the Headlines" on PBS and reflects the outlet's strategy of meeting audiences across platforms. The organization has also explored partnerships with the University of Memphis around campus radio station WUMR 91.7 FM, with Barnes envisioning locally focused newscasts derived in part from Daily Memphian content and opportunities for students in news and talk programming.

Position in the Memphis Media Market

The Daily Memphian entered a Memphis market that already included the legacy Commercial Appeal and MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, another nonprofit newsroom focused on poverty, power, and public policy. Rather than competing directly with either, The Daily Memphian positioned itself as a comprehensive daily: the city's definitive news source across beats, with the resources of a full newsroom behind it. Its nonprofit status and local roots distinguish it from the corporately owned Commercial Appeal, while its broad general-interest coverage distinguishes it from the more narrowly focused MLK50. Together the three outlets illustrate how nonprofit and legacy models can coexist in a mid-size American media market.

Sustainability and Outlook

The Daily Memphian's financial trajectory has been closely watched as a test case for nonprofit local news. After early deficits — a $1.4 million shortfall in 2019 on $4.8 million in expenses — the organization has worked to grow subscriptions, advertising, events, and individual giving. Barnes has said that $400,000 in donations came from 300 individuals in a single recent year, and that the number of donors has increased every year. The outlet's experience has informed national conversations about nonprofit sustainability: its leaders argue that nonprofit status improved access to grants and donations, but that earned revenue from readers remains the key to independence. Whether the model fully sustains a 40-person newsroom long term remains the central question of its next decade.