Created in 2026 by Noelle Maxwell, the Decatur Independent serves Greensburg and Decatur County, Indiana. Our mission is to provide accurate, in-depth coverage where all citizens see themselves reflected and can access the information they need to live, work and be engaged in the community.

We publish articles online throughout the week, then publish a newsletter recapping the week in news on Fridays.

Follow us on Facebook, Threads, Instagram and Bluesky.

About Noelle

Noelle is a freelance journalist and Greensburg native. She's served Greensburg and Decatur County for several years. She's previously worked for WTRE, the Batesville Leader, the Tree City Times and the Greensburg Daily News. She's had articles published on the Indiana Capital Chronicle. Noelle is currently a member of the Investigative Reporters and Editors Association (IRE) and the Journalism and Women's Symposium (JAWS).

Subscriptions

Paid Plan: Provides immediate access to paid content. Get all articles emailed to you directly upon publication. Get the weekly free email with links to all articles published that week and other relevant items. $12.00 per month.

Free Plan: Get the weekly free email with links to all articles published that week and other relevant items. $0.00 per month.

Why Subscribe?

Currently, we are a for-profit newsroom. All our revenue is generated from subscriptions. We believe access to information is crucial to a community so we provide as much as we can for free. The only items we paywall are the local business and local arts features, which are typically a monthly feature with the paywall lifted within a month of publication. (E.g. if we publish a Local Business Spotlight in late January, we will typically lift the paywall in late February.)

Journalism is not free to produce. Here's a breakdown of costs:

1. Hosting, $65/year: Hosting means paying the platform, in our case, Ghost via MagicPages, to provide us a publishing platform (Ghost) and a domain name.
2. Articles of Organization, $95 one-time: we needed to file these to be an official, legal business in the eyes of the State of Indiana.
3. Compensation: Yes, we are currently a one-person newsroom. That one person wears all the hats: editor, social media management, tech support if subscribers have a question, layout, graphic design and reporting. Reporting itself involves: interviewing people which can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour or more; conducting research which can take multiple hours to days, weeks or months; drafting the article, refining it and proofreading it, which can take one to two hours. I aim to publish 3-5 articles per week. This is a full-time job like any other in terms of needing to be compensated fairly for time spent.

We realize times are hard, money can be tight. If you value learning about your community - whether it's about the new shop or restaurant that opened or how the decisions made at the county commissioners meeting affect you - we urge you to sign up for a paid plan. If you can't, we understand. If you'd still like to show support without a paid subscription, you can make a one-time payment in any amount here: https://decaturindependent.mymagic.page/#/portal/support