BY ANGELA JOSSY for WEEKLY VOLCANO 1/2/2026 |
What a year this has been. When 2025 began, Weekly Volcano was a monthly newspaper, and even that felt like a huge challenge. Every issue required careful planning, fundraising, and coordination, and simply getting the paper out the door felt like a major accomplishment. Then something happened that changed everything.
We learned about something called a newspaper of record.
In all my years working at various newspapers, this designation was not at all on my radar. Maybe it is not on yours either. Let me explain. Every city is required to have at least one newspaper of record. Earning this designation means a newspaper is eligible to publish legal notices. At first glance, that may sound boring, but upon closer inspection it is actually extremely important.
Legal notices are how the public is formally informed about matters such as court actions, government decisions, property sales, estate proceedings, and other events that affect legal rights or obligations. When people are not properly notified, they may unknowingly lose rights or property, miss deadlines to respond or object, be barred from making legal claims, or have court actions proceed without their participation. In some cases, failures in public notice can invalidate proceedings altogether and expose governments, courts, or businesses to legal challenges. This system exists to protect the public, and it only works if notices are published in a place people actually see.
This is where I started asking hard questions.
Tacoma’s current newspaper of record prints approximately 300 copies per issue and has a very limited distribution footprint. At the same time, this designation comes with a publicly funded contract through the City of Tacoma. The company that holds it is not locally owned, which means those public dollars leave our local economy rather than circulating back into Tacoma through local jobs, local vendors, and local reinvestment.
Meanwhile, locally owned newspapers like Weekly Volcano, and others doing the work of informing, connecting, and reflecting our community, struggle to survive despite providing real value and real reach. That disconnect did not sit well with me. If legal notices exist to inform the public, shouldn’t they appear in a publication that actually reaches the public? That question became a turning point.
We made the decision to position Weekly Volcano to apply for newspaper of record status. The first requirement was consistency. State law requires that a qualifying paper publish weekly for at least six months. So in May of 2025, we made the leap from monthly to weekly publishing.
It was a lot more work, but we found a way to make it financially possible by reducing our page count and adjusting distribution. We were also fortunate to bring on incredible sponsors who believed in the mission, including Hunt’s Services, Ted Brown Music, Community Healthcare, McMenamins, and BBR Academy. Weekly publishing also opened the door for advertisers who needed a weekly presence, such as Grand Cinema and Blue Mouse Theater.
Many longtime supporters stayed with us every week through the transition like Dande Company, Washington State History Museum, Water from Wine, Lutheran Community Services, Cr8tyffs and Lightcurve. Many others continued to advertise whenever they had something to promote. We are deeply proud to work with these community partners.
By November 2025, we met the six-month weekly publishing requirement. During that same period, something else remarkable happened. Our online audience grew dramatically. Since switching to weekly publishing, our website traffic increased by 464 percent, more than five times our previous audience. As of December 2025, Weekly Volcano reaches more than 21,000 unique readers online each month.
That growth tells us something important. People are paying attention. They are looking for local information, local culture, and local connection.
However, there is still one major hurdle before we can apply for newspaper of record status. We need a United States Postal Service periodicals permit. To qualify, at least 50 percent of our circulation must go to paid mailing subscribers. That requirement is relatively easy to meet if you only print 300 copies per issue. We currently print 2,000 copies every week. To qualify, we need 1,000 paid mailing subscribers, or we would have to reduce our print run. We do not want to do that. We already scaled back from 8,000 copies per month to make weekly publishing possible.
Right now, we have more than 1,300 subscribers to our free Happy Friday newsletter, but only 94 home-delivery newspaper subscribers. Closing that gap is my primary New Year’s resolution for 2026. My goal is to secure the USPS periodicals permit and formally apply to become Tacoma’s next newspaper of record.
Once we achieve that, my next resolution is to lean heavily into short- and long-form video content focused on keeping people in Tacoma and Pierce County informed, educated, entertained, and activated. Our mission remains the same. We exist to highlight local businesses, local musicians, local artists, and local nonprofits. We want the people doing meaningful, inspiring work to receive feedback and support from the community they invest so much time and energy into.
When I bought Weekly Volcano in 2023, the community felt unrecognizable to me. Where we once felt united and committed to mutual support, I saw disconnection, struggle, and a growing loneliness epidemic. I believe Weekly Volcano once served as connective tissue for this city, and I wanted to help restore that role. I want people attending open mics, art shows, plays, community meetings, and local concerts. I want us spending more of our money at local businesses so prosperity circulates locally rather than leaking out.
I believe the votes we make with our everyday dollars have a profound impact on the quality of our lives and the health of our civic and political systems.
So while I am working to organize my life, make better decisions, and grow this newspaper into a force for good, I hope you will help me do that. I appreciate your feedback, your subscriptions, your story ideas, and your event submissions. I appreciate when you advertise with us, sponsor our work, or frame a copy of the paper because you loved the cover art or because we told a story about you or someone you care about.
Whether we reach 1,000 subscribers or not, only time will tell. But if you want to see it happen and you have $10 per month to devote to the cause, please know that you are part of something much bigger. The ripple effects of that participation could be felt throughout Tacoma for decades to come.
Lastly, THANK YOU FOR READING and SHARING our content. This newspaper belongs to us as a community, and it is one of the few (maybe the only one) that is still owned by someone who lives in Tacoma.
