Welcome to The Missouri Stream

 

For the past seven months, you have known us as The Commerce Dispatch. Today, that name becomes part of our history. 

Welcome to The Missouri Stream.

This is more than a new name and a new logo. It is the next chapter of a news service that grew much faster, and in a very different direction, than we expected when we launched in March.

When The Commerce Dispatch began, the idea was simple. Build an independent local newspaper from the ground up and earn a place in the community. 

The name itself came from Commerce, Missouri. Commerce is one of the oldest communities in the state. It was once the county seat of Scott County and once appeared destined for a much larger future. That future never came. The community declined, but it never fully disappeared. 

That stubborn spirit is something that we connected with. 

Then we discovered that a newspaper called The Commerce Dispatch had actually been published in Commerce in the 1800s. We researched the name, took the necessary legal steps to bring it back as ours, and built our first identity around it. It was exactly what we needed at the time too. It was the perfect name. 

Then the readers changed the plan.

The Commerce Dispatch started slowly. There were weeks when I published several stories and only a few dozen people saw them. We kept going. The goal in those early days was familiarity and trust. Just get our material out there, and hope someone sees it.  

Then the messages started coming.

Readers began sending tips. Businesses and residents began reaching out. People started telling us what they wanted covered. We started getting invitations to seminars and conventions. Stories began moving well beyond the audience we had expected them to reach.

Since March, our journalism has now been accessed more than 3.5 million times across all platforms. For a seven-month-old organization with one main writer, that fundamentally changed our understanding of what we were building.

We thought we were building a newspaper.

Our readers showed us they wanted something different. They wanted local news that moved the way they already move through the modern world.

That is The Missouri Stream.

Streaming has become part of everyday life. Music streams. Television streams. Sports stream. Video streams. News increasingly moves through the same digital current.

And then there is the other meaning.

A stream flows. It moves through communities. It branches. It connects places. It keeps moving.

That is the idea behind The Missouri Stream: a flowing network of communities informing communities.

We begin here in Southeast Missouri.

As we grow, the Stream will branch into St. Louis, Kansas City and communities throughout Missouri, with local people reporting on the places they actually live.

That ambition is much bigger than a name change.

We intend to build a modern local news service capable of competing with the established news organizations in the communities we enter. That means more writers, more reporting, video, weather, streaming coverage and eventually an app that allows readers to shape their own unique news experience.

We are going to build toward that. Today, October 1 is where that begins.

Today, you are seeing the new name. You are seeing the new logo. And for the first time, you can visit our new website.

www.missouristream.com

As October unfolds, we’ll also be introducing more of what The Missouri Stream is becoming, including the members of our newly formed editorial board. 

The Commerce Dispatch gave us our beginning.

The Missouri Stream gives us room to flow. 

Some things will change. Some things never will.

We will remain independent. We will remain locally focused. And basic community news will always be free. We will never put the basic news people read about their own communities behind a paywall.

Our readers helped build this organization. We listen to them because they are living in the same communities we are covering. That relationship comes with us.

So does the work. Seven months ago, I put my name, my face and my reputation behind a new local news organization and started writing.

Today, we’re taking the next step. We aren’t finished building this. We’re just getting started.

Welcome to your Missouri Stream

News happens fast. Stay in the Stream.