The Mirror Media Group is excited to launch the newspaper, “Westsidetoday.com” – our newest edition to our vast array of local Westside media products. Yes, the newspaper’s name is the URL that we acquired in September 2013.
Westsidetoday.com will have a print distribution of 50,000, all distributed west of La Cienega, and will be free of charge.
The neighborhoods that will receive this newspaper include Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Bel Air, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Century City, Beverlywood, Cheviot Hills, Westwood, Venice, and Marina del Rey.
Although Mirror Media already has community newspapers in three of the above communities, the idea of providing the entire Westside with relevant information that affects all of us from local news to things to do locally, was something that really resonated with our staff and our vision of a true Westside local media entity. Furthermore, we felt this could only be done by a media company that lived in the Westside and only has the Westside to worry about…which is key in a community media.
This move is also very counter-intuitive for businesses like ours in the industry – being a website first then going to a hardcopy print version – which has yet to be done here in LA. However, being in this business for only five years (basically my entire professional career), I have learned that to be a truly fully functional community resource, a local media entity must have a strong digital product and print product.
The idea of combining the most modern digital techniques through video, social media, and online marketing with the most respected format of traditional media, the newspaper, is something that I think Mirror Media has done very well in the Santa Monica community and are looking forward to producing for the entire Westside – starting now.
The end goal for Mirror Media is to provide the entire Westside community with news not only about their niche communities, but also news to bring us together as a larger community and bring awareness of both the good and bad.
For those of us who have lived in LA for some time, we in the Westside take pride in being part of and living in the “Westside.” This newspaper and our media company will simply reflect that pride, those concerns, and fun aspects of being part of this great community within the larger community of Los Angeles.
We will provide daily shows on “Westside TV” that is featured on our website Westsidetoday.com, focusing on events, news, and fun tid bits that are relevant to us. At the same time, we will continue to provide a high quality, entertaining, and most importantly relevant newspaper (for those of us who like to hold things while reading).
We here at Mirror Media Group are looking forward to a great future and are very thankful to be where we are today and have this opportunity due to our loyal readers, followers, viewers, and visitors across all our media platforms.
The media industry is very volatile right now – but where there are questions – there are always answers and we hope to be part of that answer, not just for the Westside community, but also for media companies around the nation.
Our company truly prides ourselves on pushing the boundaries and breaking the rules that traditional media companies place on themselves and I can think of nowhere better to break that mold then right here, in the Westside of LA.
