I have a soft spot in my heart for the Journal Star. My grandfather worked there. My dad has read it every morning since before I was born. It’s been a part of my life for a long time, and I love it despite some of the ridiculous editorials that they’ve published. So when I write posts like the one I wrote a few days ago, it’s with a heavy heart. I don’t want to see the paper go down the tubes.

So I was very encouraged to hear that the Peoria Newspaper Guild is looking for a way to improve the Journal Star — by getting it away from GateHouse Media, the corporate giant that bought it from Copley Press and proceeded to run it into the ground. Billy Dennis found this article on the Seattle blog Crosscut.com. The Seattle City Council has set up a committee under council member Nick Licata to look at ways to save Seattle’s newspapers.

But the committee will hear one intriguing possibility now under consideration in Peoria, Ill. That Illinois city is wrestling with its own newspaper problems, with the Peoria Journal Star and its owner, Gatehouse Media, on the financial ropes. Peoria Newspaper Guild official Jennifer Towery will describe for Licata’s committee how a community coalition is pushing legislation to turn her city’s struggling privately owned paper into a “low profit” L3C community-owned operation.

That’s a tax term for a new hybrid business model that meets the IRS’s definition of a charity, but operates like a for-profit corporation. [… Peoria] has put together support for L3C legislation that includes four state legislators, local businesses, and a handful of bank presidents. “Their goal,” Licata says, “is to get their paper back on track.”

So it sounds like the first step is to get legislation passed in Illinois that allows for these L3C operations. Then they have to raise the money to buy the paper off of GateHouse, which means they have to convince GateHouse to sell. It’s a long row to hoe, but well worth the effort. Especially since I heard last night that the Journal Star only has eight reporters left to cover the 22 counties in their readership. Something needs to change.

Go for it, Jennifer!