It is Wednesday night at the paper. The last story is in. The editor reads the front page again, moves a photo, and says the words everyone waits for: "Lock it."
That moment means something. The issue is done. It is the record of what happened in your town this week. Years from now, someone will look it up to find a wedding, a ball game or a vote at city hall.
Your website should treat each issue with the same care. A lot of news sites are built like an endless feed. A town paper is not a feed. It is a paper.
Front page: the issue
Our Newspaper & Gazette starter is made for weekly papers, small dailies, gazettes and newsletters with a print habit. It is built around the issue. You lay out a front page with your sections, like news, sports, opinion and obituaries. When it is ready, you lock it, and it becomes that issue.
The starter also gives you:
- Pages for your columnists and writers, with the bylines and bios you give us.
- An archive of the issues you have published, so readers can search past stories.
- A corrections list that stays in view. When you fix a story, readers can see what changed.
- A place for classified ads and the businesses that run them.
The site never posts news on its own. A person on your staff signs off on every story.
You can see one look it can have on The New Vibe City Gazette. It is a made-up paper we run as a demo. It shows a section front page, columnist pages, subscriber tools and archive search. Those are shown on the demo. They are not part of a Launch unless they are on your Launch list.
Run a video newsroom instead of a paper? Our News & Media starter is built around bulletins. This one is built around issues.
Inside pages: what we set up with you
The starter code is free. Anyone can clone it for $0. A Launch is when we set it up with you, on a live call. It is $2,500, paid once, for two hours with one of our people.
We set up and test the tools you want:
- Online payments. Subscriptions, classified ads or ad space can be paid online, into your own Stripe, PayPal or Square account. We never hold your money.
- A client portal. Readers and advertisers sign in with a code we email them. They see their invoices, bookings and files.
- One contact list. Every subscriber form, ad request and payment becomes a contact. We bring in the list you keep now, even if it lives in a spreadsheet.
- Online booking, if you want ad buyers to pick a time to talk. We connect your Google or Microsoft calendar and make one real test booking.
Every form sends to the inbox you name. Your paper's name, logo and colors are in place. And we check that it reads well on a phone.
Letters to the editor: changing your site
You should not need a web person to add a new columnist. After Launch, you tell your site what you want, in plain English, like a text message.
Type "add a page for our new garden column." Type "add a note to the top of the home page: no paper next week, see you after the holiday." You look it over before it goes live. That way of building is called vibe coding. On the call, you make one real change like this while we sit with you.
We also teach you the visual editor, for small edits. Click a headline or a photo and change it right where it sits.
The back page
Your site runs in your own Replit account. We charge $0 a month. Your host bills about $20 US a month for use. We can host it for $19 a month if you would rather. You own the code and can leave with a full copy any time.
Before we wrap up, we walk you through your own admin. You will know where each subscriber, ad and message lands.
Read more on the Newspaper starter page, or start your Launch. Want to talk first? Book a free call. Or type your web address on See what you'd get to see what a Launch would set up for your paper.