The owner of The Skagway News is giving the bi-weekly newspaper away… but with plenty of strings attached. The heir has to prove they can keep the paper going strong.

Larry Persily bought the 41-year-old paper earlier this year. He’s been managing the business from Anchorage where he’s a university professor teaching journalism.

He says running The Skagway News is nothing like big city reporting.

“It’s a much harder assignment, you’ve got to be a mix of reporter and also counselor, and compassionate and understanding and supportive of the community. It’s not the same as being an anonymous reporter for the Seattle Times,” he said.

The editor he’d hired is leaving, so he says he’s ready to pass on the whole newspaper to someone local–or willing to relocate. The paper’s circulation is around 500. But that’s not bad considering the community’s year-round population hovers around 1,000.

The paper’s founder, Jeff Brady, says even with social media and a robust rumor mill, small towns like Skagway need their paper of record.

“Stories go around and around different ways in the community, but really, not until they land in the paper is there any validity to them. People will always be drawn to, you know, ‘Okay, what really happened? Let’s go look in the paper.'”

And that’s one reason Persily says he needs to find someone to carry that tradition. He’s 68 and got his start in journalism in the 1960s.

“I’m hoping to find a replica of myself for 2019, 2020 to take over a small newspaper in a very small town. You know, the odds aren’t good, but I believe in it,” he said.

The owner/editor will also need to be a publisher with a knack for business. The paper’s debt free, but making money isn’t easy. The Skagway News owes its existence to the visitor’s guide it publishes for the million or so tourists who walk off cruise ships each season.

Skagway Chamber of Commerce’s Blaine Mero says the paper’s old fashioned advertising is crucial for local businesses.

“I can’t imagine not having an ad in the paper,” he said.

“Everybody has the opportunity to advertise in the paper, you know, what their business is about if they’re having a sale.”

So what does Persily want in a successor? He expects to get calls from all over, but he says his preference is someone who already knows the lay of the land.

“Someone who knows what a ferry system is and why it’s a mess. Someone who understands in the history of state funding for schools and why it’s so important and why communities are nervous. And someone who understands a seine from a gillnet from a hand troller from a power troller,” said Persily.

It’s a tall order and the clock is ticking. That visitor’s guide goes to the printer’s in the spring. Which means Persily needs a new editor in place for the New Year. If you’re interested, he says to make sure you check your spelling. He says he’s already fielded an inquiry from someone who spelled the name of their own town wrong. The job’s still open.