Taking stock after six months

An update after 75 stories and counting

    

I started this local news journey six months ago on December 12 with a story about Trent Hills council setting its budget and your tax rate for 2024.

I had decided to start writing on Substack the day before when I happened to be chatting with Councillor Rob Pope and casually asked, “So, what is council up to?”

“Well, we’re setting the budget tomorrow,” Rob replied.

“How would anyone know, since nobody covers you?” I blurted out, perhaps with expletives included.

So, the next day I watched council’s meeting on my computer at home, then when the meeting ended, I wandered around the corner to nab the mayor as he left the building, and I asked for a comment about the tax hike.

I hadn’t really thought through what I was getting myself into; I just knew I had become increasingly frustrated by the lack of local news coverage and had the skills to help reverse the trend, at least in part. If anyone cared.

So, where are we now? I have written 75 stories, have about 300 subscribers, including 70 who pay.

First, a word about the platform I am using. It is called Substack and it is used by thousands of writers around the world. It is incredibly easy for writers to use. Anyone can start writing newsletters and sending them out for free, for example to friends and family. Substack only gets money when a writer turns on payments. It handles the billing and payments, through Stripe, and charges about 8 per cent for the service.

I kept this newsletter and website entirely free for the first three months. Even now all my posts are available to everyone. My goal is to build and serve an audience, not maximize revenue.

I don’t seek or want advertising. It might conflict with my editorial independence, and it would definitely require energy and skills that I don’t have.

The feedback from readers has been gratifying and surprising. I’ve had more compliments and thanks in the past six months than I had in decades working for large newspapers.

One of my goals was to determine whether the subscription-only approach would work in a market this small. I know some Substack writers have built huge audiences and several local news operations in Australia and England are using the platform to serve larger communities.

I also wanted readers to understand that in the future, if they want news coverage they will have to pay the full cost, or almost full cost of producing that news. For the last 100 years or so, subscribers paid a very small part of that cost, it was paid by advertisers who wanted access to the customers the papers or broadcast outlets could attract.

My sense at this point is that this approach won’t work to support a younger, full-time reporter/editor in a market of only 15,000 people. I am on pace to generate about $4,000 in annual revenue. Even if readership and paid subscriptions doubled, which I hope they will, it’s hardly a living wage.

I’m not sure what that means for the future of local journalism. But at age 72 I know that I am not the future.

One thing I have confirmed in the past six months is that there are a lot of stories that could and should be covered. I only have the time and energy to do a fraction of the ones on my to-do list.

The good/bad news is that an American credit union magazine that I have written stories for over the past decade has folded, so I will have more time to devote to these stories. The bad part for me is that I used to earn several thousand U.S. dollars a year writing for editors who were a delight to worth with.

As my younger daughter sagely noted when I launched this project: “Your hobby seems a lot like your work, you’re just not getting paid.”

Readers have suggested several of the stories that I have done – the still empty county home for the homeless; the arrest of a landlord by overzealous OPP officers; the water pipe problems on Trent Island – to name just a few.

Keep the ideas and suggestions coming. I am currently working on a couple of stories that people have mentioned and I hope they will turn into stories soon. Getting the details and cutting through the rumours to check the facts often takes time.

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Ranney rebuild going well

Ranney St. on Monday morning.

Work is going well on the $4.2 million reconstruction of Ranney Street North, says Neil Allanson, Manager of Roads and Urban Services.

The work by Drain Brothers Excavating Ltd. has not run into any unexpected issues, Allanson said.

The project is replacing sewer lines that were installed in 1928 and water lines that were added two years later in 1930.

The work started south of Market St., but will tackle the north end to Front St. once the high school closes for the summer.