Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Did the NY Times ever take city coverage all that seriously? The
pre-Murdoch Post and Daily News had far better city coverage, from
my point of view, than the Times ever did. Yes, it was tabloid-ish,
but my recollection (from a long time ago) is that they did a decent
job overall.

I agree re local commercial TV "news" is -- it's built around the
accurate cliche, "If it bleeds it leads." That's had a pernicious
effect over the years. Over a generation, crime rates plummeted in
America. But largely thanks to local TV stations, the public
believed the opposite -- and demagogues lobbied for, and got,
ever-crueler criminal justice legislation.

Some of the local nonprofit news sites are doing amazing work. In
the Bay Area, Mission Local out-performs the Chronicle on local
news. 

We shouldn't forget another source of local -- the conversations
already taking place on sites that are bad for us in other ways. In
our small town near SF, the Facebook group -- moderated expertly by
someone who takes that role seriously (and I contribute to his
Patreon fundraising) -- is the only place to get anything resembling
news for the community. I hope we'll leave FB, given Zuckerberg's
overtly disinformation-friendly moves to help Trump, but that's
going to be a lift.
  

    
In the Washington DC suburb of Montgomery County, the publisher of
the lifestyle Bethesda Magazine has for a couple of years been
publishing a free online local news service, with a daily email. 
Originally it was Bethesda Beat, then it became MoCo 360, and now
it's Bethesda Today.  They have two full-time reporters and surface
a lot of important local news, including what's going on in the
county council, restaurant openings, fires, robberies, etc.  They
periodically ask for contributions, and I throw them some bucks,
although I'm phasing out my subscription to their Bethesda Magazine.
There are a few other hyperlocal news sources on Facebook and
whatever that also provide good local news.  Much better than the
WaPo.
  

    

The NYT does still have a Metro desk, though it doesn't get the resources
that it used to when the City Desk was basically The Times, and the other
departments were bureaus.

  And while the tabs were livelier, the Times Metro desk at its best had
full bureaus in all five boroughs and well regarded columnists like Meyer
Berger

<https://www.nytimes.com/1959/02/09/archives/meyer-berger-60-of-times-is-
dead-reporter-got-pulitzer-prize-in-50.html>

  But the Metro desk has dwindled as the Times built its ambitions to be a
national and global news organization.

  Speaking of big journalism questions, I have to wonder whether some of the
people giving up their subscriptions to the Washington Post are going to
find their way back to the NYT. I desperately wish the Post weren't going
down this path.
  

    

>  I agree re local commercial TV "news"

one day during the last Trump administration, i was out in a different part
of the Oregon hinterlands reporting on a multi-site art piece. i sat in a
country-style half-diner, half-nearly-empty shop with old metal shelves,
eating eggs and hash browns and watching the nearest local-ish Fox News
station with the sound off.

the broadcast led with murders, focusing on suspects with Latino last
names. then it descended into some other realms of darkness and woe.

i noticed how different this local-ish Fox News broadcast was compared to
the one in a small city near-ish where i live in Central Oregon. yes, ours
covers murders, but it just isn't so dark and fear-mongering. 

anyway, i thought that was interesting. there's still some local in the
local news.

personally, i'm glad we have local commercial TV "news," and in our region
here, an upstart internet-based one (Central Oregon Daily News). typically
these folks are not breaking deep investigative stories, but they're tying
communities together and combining entertainment, hard news, cute community
stuff, and weather/wildfire. everyday people actually CARE about this.
nonprofits i've worked for here, and a couple of feel-good, kid-oriented
small businesses, got great coverage from local TV news. 

if your local news providers swirl some fun and community in with the dark
stuff and the serious reporting, what's to complain about? that's like
complaining about comics, horoscopes, bridge games, or Wordle in newspapers
or newspaper sites. only a few of us are going to read all the
investigative stories from start to finish. does that swing elections? 
  

    
In answer to Emily's question:

The 15-year-old Institute for Nonprofit News represents 475 news
organizations. Do they make up for the community newspapers that
have died? Not yet, but it's a healthy development. 

Probably the Texas Tribune, also 15 years old, is the leader of the
pack. Statewide. Hefty and diverse staff. Partners with national and
local media. Publishes databases.  Starting a statewide network of
nonprofit newsrooms. Had its first layoffs in 2023, unsettling, but
none since. 

I've been impressed by the Baltimore Banner, where I have a former
student working. Also statewide. Now the biggest news organization
in Maryland, according to Editor&Publisher. Eighty-five journalists.
Working hard to fill the gaps led by the decimation of the local
Baltimore Sun. Just partnered with the NYT on a big investigation
about opioids. 

In New York, folks I know like Hell Gate, which is worker owned. And
tiny, with about six reporters. But hiring!

Here's a directory of nonprofit newsrooms.
https://findyournews.org/

The big kahuna of course is ProPublica, and long may it wave. 
  

    
In the nonprofit category I want to give a shout-out to Mississippi
Today -- https://mississippitoday.org/ -- a site that has done
superb investigative reporting there. It also does at least some of
the bread-and-butter coverage that is so vital yet increasingly
rare.

MT currently under attack from sleazy politicians who are abusing
the legal system to try to kill it. See
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/politics/2024/12/20/ms-today-phil-bry
ant-lawsuit-could-affect-how-stories-are-reported/76948054007/ for more.

BTW, I give financial support to pretty much any small news org that
I mention here. I hope others reading this will send money to the
sites they consider valuable, especially ones local to you, because
they are our (at least my) major hope for the future.
  

    
Here in Britain local newspapers have also been starved. In my local area,
the Richmond and Twickenham Times used to provide enough stories by itself
to fill each week's 45-minute edition of the talking newspaper recorded for
and sent to visually impaired people. Now, finding enough stories involves
that paper's website as well as the "nub" newsaggregator, the Twickenham
Tribune, and loads of other local sites.

However, when the London-wide newspaper The Evening Standard got bought and
turned into a weekly website (it was daily, in print), Jim Waterson set up
London Centric - unfortunately on Substack - to do real cictywide reporting.
He's doing good stuff. Britain also has TheFerret.scot, an investigative
cooperative focusing on Scotland, and the Bristol Cable (same thing, in
Bristol). Journalism continues. It's the corporate business model that's
broken.

The Register, now a stalwart of technology journalism, started circa 1991
when two guys decided to do an emailed newsletter on the chip industry. Then
came the web and advertising, and that's when it became a financially viable
business. It's remained independent all these years, and now hires an editor
I used to work for when he was at Ziff-Davis in SF. All those layers of
middle management are really expensive.

wg
/.
  

    
You're right, Dan, I should have shouted out Mississippi Today. 

And I do throw money at several of these when I can. 

Speaking of which, here's a topic that's been around for years and
still bugs me: Is it really so impossible to allow would-be readers
to buy access to a single story for a paltry sum? Would it cost more
than it brings in? The demand is obviously there. 
  

    
It's been over 25 years since I lived in San Francisco, but when I
need to deep dive into SF politics or culture, I turn to 48 Hills,
an independent newsroom edited by old friend Tim Redmond, whom I got
to know when we were both volunteer staff at the Haight Ashbury
Switchboard, and who was then a reporter for the Bay Guardian. When
that turned toxic, Tim founded and with some other renegade castoffs
from the Guardian launched 48 Hills, now published by the San
Francisco Progressive Media Center, a 501(c)(3).
  

    
  My dream would be for these smaller local papers to confederate
and allow a subscription that covers them all. Like a museum
membership that has reciprocal members. I subscribe to three
Louisiana papers, the Times-Picayune, The Lens, and the Louisiana
Illuminator, because we live there part time, and they do good
investigative work.
   All three are better papers than whatever the nom du jour of the
East Bay Times is, to which I also subscribe. I’d love to be able to
dip into papers like those that have been mentioned, but can’t
justify subscribing because of an occasional interest. 
  

    
>allow would-be readers to buy access to a single story for a paltry
sum?

There's an opportunity there for someone to exploit. What is needed
is a reconciliation middleware app that a user can subscribe to
monthly (with cafeteria pricing, from peanuts for a handful of
articles to premium pricing for all you can eat) that would show
your pass to the media property when you click on an article, and
then compensates the media properties based on volume, pocketing the
delta. I think it's a billion dollar idea, and I offer it as a
mitzvah. If I was younger, I'd write up a pro forma and a pitch deck
and shop it around the venture community myself.
  

    
I don't understand why that, or something like it, has never
happened. What are the barriers?
  

    

  Paula brought up the Texas Tribune, which is still going strong — though
they hit a bump and experienced their first layoffs ever just last year.
It's an important news organization that feeds its work to other news orgs
across the state, and regularly breaks news.

   Their founding publisher, Evan Smith, moved on, and he was a genius
fundraiser. Anyone else would have trouble measuring up. But they are still
working their asses off and will be invaluable in the hellish legislative
session that began this week.
  

    
It has been tried. I'm blanking right now in the name, but it wsa a German
operation that aimed to be something like streaming services but for
publications. You paid in a modest amount and then could pay something like
25 cents to read a single article. It failed in the UK, but actually did pay
some German publishers (millions IIRC). Not sure if it's still going.

wg
  

    
Slipped. "It" refers to #87 and something like a subscription service for an
aggregation of publishers.

wg
  

    
(as an aside, there is also 'the frisc' in sf, somewhat similar to
mission local and 48 hills. am acquainted with one of the head guys
behind it; but alas to me it seems duplicative and i never find a
reason to read it. and i think the name is really bad...)
  

    
>What are the barriers?

It has to scale galactically at launch. Huge capital intensive build
out for an uncertain appetite. At least that's what the VCs will
tell you while trying to find a way to snake it to one of their
captive startups.
  

    
wrt #92, cant see why vcs would be interested in this. wouldnt have
the insane upside they look for; media is a losing business.
  

    
It doesn't fit the typical investment arc of incremental rounds
triggered by milestones. As I say, it has to scale on day one; high
pucker factor.
  

    
Micro-payments for news is an idea that makes sense to everyone but
news providers. I agree with Axon (#92 above) -- it's hard to
imagine a third party willing to set up something that would have to
have huge scale, and the publishers are not willing to do it
themselves for whatever reason. Moreover, each publisher values its
own content more than the market would value it, IMO. 
  

    

   Meanwhile, we're being asked to support individual writers via Substack.
Big news organizations offer economies of scale, at least.
  

    
Personally, I'm well-served by news aggregators. My primary is Apple
News+, which allows me to read content from a rather large number of
periodicals, including both magazines and newspapers. The cost is
reasonable, $12.99 per month. There's also Google News, which is
free. I also use a news reader, NewsBlur, at $36 per year. Through
these three sources I have substantial access - more than I can
track. I agree that suppport for micropayments would be a good thing
for many, but I have access to any story I want to read. I've also
noticed sites (like Yahoo) that provide open access to stories that
are paywalled at the source. 

I do wonder how Apple manages to offer so much access for so small a
price.
  

    
I also use Apple News but these days the primary aggregator I use, and pay
for (there is a free version as well) is Ground News, which includes
ratings of the news sources as to factuality, ownership, left/right bias.
https://ground.news/
  

    
Matisse: interesting

Jon: Can you share the same subscription with someone in your "apple
family" (like, my husband) without paying for a second subscription?

Re <95> this doesn't feel like a daunting scalability problem. I
think it's possible to make it profitable by charging a membership
fee or charging per view. Monthly memberships could be expensive and
unlimited, cheaper and limited (100 views a month?), or one-off
(most expensive). Without looking at actual numbers I _feel_ like
someone could make money off that. The reason I wouldn't worry about
scaling is this service wouldn't serve any content and it wouldn't
be a search engine. In the scheme of things, the transactions it
would handle are rare (a million a second? nope. A thousand a
second? Maybe? But if someone pays for an article they're going to
read it so every user won't be hammering the system more than once
every couple of minutes) The hardest part would be the spotify-like
agreements you'd need to make with every news outlet and the
infrastructure they'd need to build to support it. Alternatively
maybe it _could_ serve the content (like archive.ph, which I, um,
cough cough never use) which it retrieves from the news outlets
using its own account. That might be much easier to negotiate and
puts implementation onus on the service. A reason that wouldn't work
is ad revenue. The ad targeting would be to the service's account,
not the end user. There are probably technical ways around that as
well.

> Meanwhile, we're being asked to support individual writers via
Substack. Big news organizations offer economies of scale, at least.

Is there a way for these individual writers to form a cooperative
that would create an economy of scale?
  

    
>a way for these individual writers to form a cooperative
that would create an economy of scale

I think that's The Contrarian's not-so-secret sauce. A lot of the
names on their masthead are already publishing on Substack. This
looks increasingly like an eyeball aggregation play, rather than a
content aggregation strategy.