Philly Plain Dealer

In the 1970’s the Philly Plain Dealer was a “true underground rag, distributed free and published by a collective.” The brand disappeared until 50 years later, when I (Jason N. Peters) bought the domain name and began publishing the “unsellable” and unpublishable. When I moved to New York City to work for HOT 97 as the Head of Podcasts, the Plain Dealer lost its momentum, so I pivoted to using the outlet to publish new writers for their first time and teach them how to write, the foremost being Martin Sakansong. Sakansong helped keep the Philly Plain Dealer dream alive until 2024 when Peters returned to Philly and decided to give this dream one more shot.

In November 2024, a team of more than a dozen writers and creators convened at Lucy’s Bar on Chestnut Street to discuss building the Philly Plain Dealer into a real and viable outlet in Philadelphia. The team agreed that an outlet of this nature was necessary in the stiff, unchanging landscape of news media in Philly. 

This month, December 2024, we will be introducing our new team of writers one by one and publishing more frequently. We are well aware that the media industry is in a free fall and sponsorship dollars are hard to come by, but we’d rather try and fail than not try. We are well aware that this is ill-advised.

The Philly Plain Dealer is on a journey to see if an equitable, writer-owned news outlet is viable in this economy and media landscape. Our goals are simple, we’d like to create a news outlet that is worth looking at. We want to have stories that other outlets may not have and leave the obvious news to the companies that have larger staffs and more resources. We want to create a print magazine that runs periodically, we want to create a podcast network, and we want to create as much video content as we can afford. We want to show the parts of Philly that we love and highlight improvements that can be made. 

Our print edition will come out in April 2025. There will only be 250 copies, so get them while they’re hot. We intend for the magazine to be special and something that you’d like to collect. All print stories will have delayed online releases.

We are not financed by anyone at the moment, we are operating as a start-up and looking for initial investors. If you are someone who wants to support a journalistic outlet that is not tethered to wants of mega-corporations, support us!

There are only a few companies in this city that young creatives can work for and most people will never get an opportunity to even interview. Personally, I have written for most news outlets in Philadelphia, I have been published in WHYY, Billy Penn, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Grid Magazine, Philly Weekly, and Metro Philly. I have applied for jobs at all of those places on a number of occasions, some more than 20 times, and have never gotten an interview.

We hope to create an outlet that will give writers an opportunity to do what they love, and connect with the city that they love.

We are currently looking for Founding Partners and sponsors. We are aware that our reach is currently not what it could be, so we are offering our sponsors and founding partners discounted rates, as well as our digital marketing services that can accomplish a much greater reach beyond the scope of the Philly Plain Dealer. 

Reach out to us and see what we’re offering if you’d like to support local journalism. 

If you don’t have a business interested in sponsoring us, that’s perfectly fine – we will be rolling out a print edition and hope to sell some of the 250 copies. We will also be selling merch, introducing a podcast, and accepting donations. 

The Philly Plain Dealer hopes to be a positive addition to the Philadelphia news ecosystem and we’re excited for the year ahead of us. Give us a follow, share our stories and tell your friends – because new things don’t exist without genuine excitement and a little love. 

Thank you for your time, we hope to make you proud!