I'd like to emphasize that a healthy community news operation needs to start with a clear-headed focus on building a sustainable enterprise. That means approaching it as a business (like any other local business), with a budget, likely expenses and likely revenues.  This goes for nonprofit and for-profit sites alike. Many local news startups begin  with the idea of doing great journalism, and unfortunately  it's only  later that the "build  a sustainable enterprise" aspect gets any attention, sometimes as a result of crisis. Journalists who are motivated to strike out on their own should take the time to think through how their enterprise will sustain itself, build a realistic plan to make it so, and be prepared to adjust later.