The Keystone
The Keystone is a Pennsylvania digital newsroom publishing fact-based local news, politics, and culture online.
Founded
2020The Keystone is a Pennsylvania digital newsroom publishing fact-based local news, politics, and culture online.
The Keystone publishes Pennsylvania state and local news, politics, labor, healthcare, education, environment, and culture coverage on its website and through free email newsletters including a flagship Pennsylvania newsletter, the Keystone Labor Report, and a food-and-drink newsletter.
Distribution is digital-first and social-native: articles, short-form video, and posts reach readers on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and X, with content offered free rather than behind a subscription paywall.
The continued contraction of local newspapers across the United States has left many communities with fewer sources of credible local reporting, creating demand that digital-native, social-distributed outlets attempt to fill. Pennsylvania is one of the larger state markets affected by that decline.
Audience attention has shifted toward social platforms and newsletters, which favors outlets built around those channels. The sustainability of the model depends on a mix of advertising, sponsorship, reader contributions, and philanthropic support rather than subscription revenue.
A single-state focus on Pennsylvania gives The Keystone a concentrated editorial identity and audience that national outlets and metro papers cover only partially. Meeting readers on the social platforms they already use lowers the friction that paywalled local news faces.
Free access supported by advertising, sponsorships, reader contributions, and philanthropic funding widens reach among audiences unlikely to subscribe. Backing by the COURIER network supplies shared infrastructure, distribution, and a stated editorial firewall from funders.