Disagree. Where I live there is a local news website that is mostly one guy, who attends city and county meetings, summarizes issues discussed and decisions made, analyzes the data that local government provides under various "transparency" initiatives---all stuff that our local newspaper no longer covers. I pay a monthly subscription (which isn't even required to read) because I believe that local news is the most important news. Nothing happening in the federal governemnt or the middle east or eastern Europe affects me from a local standpoint, and it's easy to stay informed on those events through a variety of sources. But there's very little coverage of the stuff that does affect me: decisions of local government, boards and commissions, stuff that directly affects the taxes I pay and the community I live in.

You may be right that not enough people want to pay the bill, but I do and so far it seems to be working.

I stopped subscribing to our local traditional newspaper because it's nothing but lightweight feature stories, local sports, and reprints of news from USA Today.

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EvanAnderson 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think what you have there is cool, but I question if it would be sustainable.

In a market where "mostly one guy" can cover the beat that might work for awhile, with all the caveats that come from depending on an individual, versus an organization, to do a job.

In a larger market, where multiple people would be needed to cover the workload, I'm not so sure the funding model would work. I can imagine the subscription fees not keeping up with the step function of adding people to the organization. (You need that 3rd reporter to drive subscription revenue by expanding coverage, but current subscription revenue doesn't support it, so you can't add them.)

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CodingJeebus 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think this is great, and I'm glad to hear that there are people out there doing this kind of work.

The main thing you need to watch out for in this kind of situation is corruption of the news filtering process on the local level. It's much easier to successfully bribe/coerce/undermine a single individual running an independent newsletter like this than it is an entire newsroom. Editors are helpful for vetting sources, providing guidance on how to follow up on leads, etc.

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showerst 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think that's great!

Maybe that's the answer, hope your town gets one or two good journalists who can live off the pool of people who do care. Then you just hope that they don't get hit by a bus, sell out without you knowing, etc.

I do wish there was a more systematic market for it though, it's crazy how much value a few reporters can provide just by providing the check on power of asking basic questions to those in power.

	▲	pixl97 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>Then you just hope that they don't get hit by a bus, sell out without you knowing, piss off the wrong person, etc. Reporting does have some dangers.

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tptacek an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Where I live we have like 6 people doing that, and they all post summaries on Facebook for free.

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potato3732842 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The problem with "one guy" is the potentially high standard deviation. The one guy can potentially be a careerist good old boy club protecting special interest facilitating jerk in the same way that any of the dozens of the barely accountable bureaucrats in your town can be.

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joenot443 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'd still prefer that "one guy" if the alternative is nothing. My Ontario town has a similar character. Lord knows he has his biases, but frequently the alternative to a loud curmudgeon is just no accountability at all.

	▲	potato3732842 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Accountability to whom and on what axis? My city's apparent "we're poor AF and can't in good conscience say yes to any boondoggle expenditure or no to anyone who wants to invest anything" soft policy is a Karen's nightmare.

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beezlebroxxxxxx 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If one guy can make it, then another guy could probably too. That's how cities used to have sometimes 3 or 4 competing papers.

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atmosx 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Nothing happening in the federal governemnt or the middle east or eastern Europe affects me from a local standpoint, and it's easy to stay informed on those events through a variety of sources.

This is something that - for whatever reason - takes a surprising amount of time for ppl to understand.

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psunavy03 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I do agree that local policies are important, but I'm wary of "Nothing happening in the federal governemnt or the middle east or eastern Europe affects me from a local standpoint."

If there's a theme to US politics these days, it's one party or the other trying to get power so they can ram home the same policies across the nation, and the hell with state or local governments that want otherwise.

Since the advent of social media, there's a huge blurring of the lines between national and local issues. The fact that, say, someone got shot 2,000 miles away should be a tragedy, but have no bearing on my own life. But now one party or the other will use it as a cudgel to push policies in my own state and locality.

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bluGill 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If something happens in the US or the middle east I'll find out about it - because so many other people need to know the same it isn't hard to find enough people to pay for it.

However if something happens in my city - odds are nobody else reading this lives in the same city and so you don't care. There are only about 30,000 people in the world who care about my cities' parks, the rest of you will never care (maybe one of the thousands of you will happen to stop at a park for one hour of your life - but if we have terrible parks you will just head to the next town). However I live here, the parks in my city matter to me, and so I need someone to tell me about them. Remember I just used parks as an example, the school board and library board happen to meet on the same night so it isn't even possible for me to attend both and that is before we account for my kid's having gymnastics at the same night making getting to one tricky.

	▲	the_snooze an hour ago \| parent [-]
		My local issue of interest is how my county and state administer elections. I volunteer as a poll worker for nearly every election, with a preference for the "boring" low-turnout contests like state legislative and local board primaries. This experience has given me insight you would never get on national news but lots of people blindly argue about: voter ID requirements, how provisional ballots work, why higher-population counties take longer to report results on election night, what election night "calls" actually mean, entirely mundane failure modes that can slow down the line, etc. You'd think that for such an important issue like elections you'd get more interest at the local level where regular citizens can actually get involved. But nope. We're always desperate to fill poll worker assigments on non-presidential years, even though those are the best and least stressful opportunities to experience first-hand what it's all about.

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potato3732842 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Basically everything the feds do winds up getting implemented state or locally in a backhanded national drinking age sort of way.

When you get into the minutia of policy changes and "yeah we'll just enforce what the feds say and let the official rules be wrong until someone sues" type behavior that comes about as a result it'll have you shopping for bulldozers on FBMP.

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intended 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The roots of the current situation in US politics, arose from concerted actions taken at local levels.

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venndeezl 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I believe it's important for you to show up at the meetings too, not outsource political action like you do sewing of your clothes.

Consistent displays of comity would go a long way to kowtowing the politisphere.

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intended 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How is that disagreement with what they are saying?

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milofeynman 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We have this also. https://coppellchronicle.substack.com/

Article about it: https://simonowens.substack.com/p/this-local-newsletter-cove...

40%+ conversion rate on substack.

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like_any_other 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Nothing happening in the federal governemnt or the middle east or eastern Europe affects me from a local standpoint

The federal government decides the limits within which your local government must operate. A good chunk of your taxes go to wars in the middle east, and a good deal of the politicians in that federal government self-professedly care more about a middle-eastern country than the one they were elected to represent [1].

To rephrase a saying - you may not care about federal politics, but federal politics cares about you.

[1] "if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain would be our commitment to our aid, I don’t even call it our aid, our cooperation with Israel." - Nancy Pelosi, Israel-American Council Conference, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1LmnQRnw8I