05/29/2026
Today, I quit.
My name is John McGuire, and I’m the editor and co-founder of Spring-Ford Press.
After years working in marketing and technology, I walked away from a stable career to focus on this project full-time.
I’ve been a lot of things in my 37 years: a Temple graduate, a high school dropout, a reporter, a musician, a marketer, an elected official, an AI professional. But nothing has ever brought me a better sense of purpose than telling local stories.
Like many journalists, I’ve watched the local news industry collapse for years. When I graduated from college in 2016, newsrooms were already shrinking and opportunities were disappearing. I eventually left journalism to build a sustainable career elsewhere, but I never stopped thinking about how local news could survive.
When generative AI emerged, many people immediately saw a threat to journalism. I saw an opportunity to rethink how local news can be created, distributed, and sustained.
With AI, I’m able to turn public meeting recordings into article drafts in a fraction of the time it would traditionally take. Every story is reviewed, edited, fact-checked, and ultimately remains my responsibility. But the technology allows me to consistently share important news that might otherwise go unreported.
Just as importantly, it creates more time for the kind of journalism I love most: telling the stories of local businesses, community organizations, and the people who make this area a great place to live.
That’s what Spring-Ford Press is all about.
A lot of people assume we’re part of a large company, but the reality is we’re a team of three: myself and two incredibly talented University of South Carolina students, Dylan Cobb and Preston Schlagheck. Together, we’re testing a model that we hope can eventually help strengthen local news in communities across the country.
Imagine if every reporter who lost their job had the ability to build their own local news organization.
Imagine how informed our communities could be.
That’s the future we want to help create.
We don’t have investors. We have a handful of advertisers who took a chance on us, and we’re grateful to each one of them.
We also have you.
Over the last three months, you’ve read our stories, shared our posts, sent tips, offered feedback, and encouraged us to keep going. Your support is the reason I felt confident enough to take this leap.
So thank you.
If you want to help, keep reading, keep sharing, keep telling us what you think, and subscribe to our free weekly newsletter.
We’re all in. Let’s see what’s possible.
