As a part of our goal to operate for the public benefit, Civic Spark Media and the Western Wayne News will provide regular updates to the community on our operations, health and future plans. This is our latest community report, reflecting activities for both the Western Wayne News newspaper and the WayneCounty.info news aggregator in the third quarter of 2025.
See also: 2025Q2, 2025Q1, 2024, 2023Q4, 2023Q3, 2023Q2, 2023Q1, 2022Q4.
By the Numbers
Q3 2025 Finances
These financial reports are unaudited and unofficial, but we believe them to be complete and accurate as of this publishing. Rounded to the nearest hundred.
- Income
- Advertising sales: $68,400
- Newspaper subscriptions & individual sales: $59,000
- Miscellaneous income: $1,200
- Donations: $0
- Expenses
- Employee payroll & contractors: $69,400
- Newspaper printing: $19,400
- Postage & delivery: $8,200
- Rent, office expenses & utilities: $5,600
- Software and online services: $4,500
- Credit card processing & bank fees: $2,100
- Insurance: $900
- Advertising & marketing: $800
- Travel: $400
- Other expenses: $100
- Charitable contributions: $0
- Depreciation & amortization: $0
- Legal and accounting service fees: $0
Other Metrics of Interest
As of December 1, 2025
- Western Wayne News subscriber households
- Print: 3,200
- Online: 920
- Western Wayne News retail location copies distributed weekly: 520
- WayneCounty.info daily newsletter subscribers: 870
- Civic Spark Media team
- Full-Time Employees: 4
- Part-Time Employees: 2
- Contractors: 15
Notes
Some milestones and notes from the third quarter of 2025:
- The adjustments we made earlier this year related to how we hand papers off to the U.S. Postal Service seem to be paying off, with fewer overall delivery issues and some reports of subscribers receiving their papers earlier and more consistently. We appreciate our partnership with the staff at area post offices who have helped us see this through. Still, we know there is more work to do here as delivery to out of county and out of state addresses still often takes weeks or longer.
- We said farewell to two WWN team members: John Griffin, who helped get the WWN to retail stores and in to the hands of readers for seven years, and Suzy Kasztelan, who provided a warm and welcoming experience for customers calling and visiting our Cambridge City office. We wish them both well! This is a Q4 item but still worth noting: In November we welcomed a new reporter, Lorin Williams.
- WWN’s local news reporting and photography was celebrated with multiple awards from a statewide journalism organization, the Hoosier State Press Association, during their 2025 Journalism Conference and Awards Luncheon.
- We increased our rates for annual print and online subscriptions, in an effort to offset the increased costs of producing the newspaper (including those coming from increased U.S. tariffs), and in our ongoing effort to make our wages more competitive and work toward adding basic employment benefits for our team.
- We consolidated our public lobby open hours in our Cambridge City office as a part of addressing our ongoing staffing and capacity challenges. We are experimenting with a set time we are open every week (Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.) along with offering scheduled appointment slots at various other times throughout the week. This is helping us to still be accessible to those who value connecting with our team in person in our office, while ensuring the right person is available to help them. We also continue to be available by phone and email during business hours throughout the week.
- Our team again worked hard to provide State Fair Band Day coverage, profiling teams leading up to the event and then providing updates and results from Band Day itself.
- We were able to provide a cost of living wage increase for regular employees.
- We are hiring for a general administrator, a sports writer, and high school or college interns.