Sean Scott wakes up each morning to his alarm at 7:30 a.m. in his apartment in Oxford. After getting ready for the day, he makes sure to spend time with his cats Ghost and Nymeria. Next, at 8:30 a.m., he walks to his office at College at Elm already thinking about his articles, interviews and meetings for the day.
Once he arrives at College at Elm, he begins his job as the editor of the Oxford Free Press.
In June 2024, three retired Miami University professors founded the Free Press. The Free Press is an independent, nonprofit newspaper that serves the Oxford community, surrounding townships and Talawanda School District.
Previously, Oxford had The Oxford Press, which started in the 1930s. Once Cox Enterprises bought it, it was changed to a four-page insert in the Journal News in November 2014. Eventually, it was disbanded all together after the last print in January 2024, leaving Oxford with only The Miami Student and the Oxford Observer, a student-reported online news source.
“What people have been telling [the founders of the Free Press] is that they felt that they were living here in this small, semi-rural town in a news blackout,” said James Rubenstein, president of the Free Press’s board of directors. “The big city papers, the TV and radio stations were not providing coverage of Oxford anymore.”
Rubenstein said the Student and the Observer are informative publications, but they have limitations: they can only run during the school year. This leaves Oxford stranded for the summer and winter months, when students are home for break. The two outlets are also dominantly online, whereas Rubenstein said Oxford citizens prefer printed news.
“Oxford’s a print town,” Rubenstein said. “There’s 8,000 non-students living in Oxford, and of the 8,000 non-students, 2,000 are over the age of 65, so it’s an older town … they love the print version of the newspaper.”
Roughly 1,500 copies of the Free Press are distributed on Miami's campus and in the surrounding community. One of those locations is Williams Hall.
The Free Press was started by Richard Campbell, the first chair of the Media, Journalism and Film (MJF) department at Miami, John Skillings, former dean of the College of Arts and Science and Rubenstein. Their goals were to address the Oxford community, write what the community wanted to read and keep the community informed through print news.
“Having community news means the community can have a better sense of what's happening in the town's borders,” said Free Press board member and MJF Department Chair Rosemary Pennington. “It's vital to the livelihood of any town, small or large, to have a local news outlet devoted just to what's happening there.”
Sean Scott, a Miami class of 2024 alumnus, was hired in May 2024 to be editor of the paper. He came into the role after serving as The Student’s editor-in-chief the year prior and establishing connections to the community.
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“I really learned the vast majority of what skills I use today from being involved in [The Student]. I would not at all be where I am at without having done [The Student],” Scott said. “I think that it was by far the biggest and best learning experience that I've ever had.”
Now, Scott reports for, edits and manages the Oxford Press. Each Wednesday, he begins to plan the content for the following week. He reviews calendars of local governments to plan out different meetings and events to cover – the majority are from Oxford, but he does occasionally cover College Corner or local townships.
He also said he reviews state legislation for things that could impact Oxford and reaches out to columnists and other writers to make sure he has 16 pages worth of content.
“I'm happy with the kind of balance we have in terms of longer form pieces, more breaking news and focusing on the stories that are most likely to have an impact on our readers,” Scott said.
Along with Scott, the Free Press hires two student interns each semester, which includes two student reporter scholarships. In total, five students have worked at the local paper so far.
In addition to Scott and the student reporters, a board of directors oversees the financial aspects of the newspaper. They decide who gets hired, raise funds and work with Scott on big-picture items. However, Pennington said they do not have a say in what stories are printed.
“The only reason the Oxford Free Press can exist is because of the support of the community,” Pennington said. “We have a lot of donations [and] local businesses are starting to advertise pretty regularly. There are different organizations who when they [want to] get word out about something, they come to the [Free Press].”
It also relies on community volunteers. Every Friday morning, a group gathers to circulate the 1,500 newspapers to a few dozen newsstands.
Snavely is one of the volunteers. He and Skillings take turns each week dropping off papers. He takes a few bundles of papers to Kroger, then heads to Moon Co-Op and finally drives to Darrtown’s Don’s Carry Out and Eric’s Pizza. Typically, he said there are no papers left for him to pick up the following week.
“Everybody is so happy to have a paper again,” Snavely said. “[The community has] been very friendly, excited and upbeat, and people are now talking about it.”
While the response to the Free Press has been great, there are plans to grow in the future. The Free Press hopes to hire a full-time reporter and business manager.
Sean Scott revitalized the Oxford Free Press when he was named as editor-in-chief in May.
“Having another person on staff, once the financial situation allows for that, will let us dig into more coverage areas,” Scott said. “I particularly want more agricultural and religious coverage. Those are important aspects of people's lives that [journalists as a whole] don't look into very much.”
However, the Free Press is small and will continue to stay small to best support Oxford.
“[The Free Press] should remain as independent as it is,” Snavely said. “My goals for it are for people in the community to feel like they can find out what's going on.”
Snavely said the response to the Free Press has been positive. The community has enjoyed having a small, local print newspaper again and will often go to Scott with story ideas and thoughts to include. In January, the Free Press hosted an event celebrating six months where more than 100 people attended.
“I'm most proud of being able to work with this team to create the product that is bringing people together in a way that the community is really vocally engaged with,” Scott said.
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