Starting A Successful Local News Site
Plus coverage of the death of the Queen - how the media reacted and the surprising way the Palace announced her passing.
Image: Don L. Day, Courtesy BoiseDev.com
You founded BoiseDev six years ago, a project you call a “micro-news site” in Boise. What do you mean by that, and what’s the site’s mission?
Well, your research is good and led to some dated language on our site we probably need to clean up a bit. We used to be more "micro" because we pretty much just covered development news. But, in our time, we've expanded to include general business news, municipal politics, civics, startups and other things in that orbit. We've also expanded from "just" Boise to covering a bigger geographic area around the area. I often say if I had it to do over, I wouldn't name it BoiseDev because it's not just Boise and not just Dev — but I joke that the main newspaper here, the Idaho Statesman isn't about a single stately man, either. (Ed Note: 😂)
There have been a lot of local and hyperlocal sites come and go in the last decade. What have you done to survive that the others haven’t?
Focus on the money. I don't mean that to be flippant. But it's all about revenue. We have more than two dozen advertisers (all local) and our membership program is strong. This was 100% bootstrapped by me and my wife, so there are no outside investors and no debt. We cashflow every single month and have healthy reserves. In short, I just really pay attention to building month by month.
The editorial side is harder to pin down. It mostly comes down to three things, though: 1) We don't run opinion content and are careful not to shade stories (or share opinions on social media). We are based in a blue city in a red state and want to provide quality news that everyone can benefit from. 2) We are reader-responsive. We run a lot of stories that we call “You Asked” — often quick items on things people see and think "what's up with that?" Sometimes it's a building going up, or more complicated policy questions. And the approach informs our general editorial philosophy — instead of the "I'm the trained journalist and I know what news is" approach, it's "what are people asking, and what do they want to know about?" 3) Our niche is focused. We are mostly out of the social issues space, which is well-covered by our peers, so it gives us a bit of a pass. We don't feel the need to do the "news of record" approach, so we also don't cover crime or fires or car crashes. And we're intently focused on enterprise reporting. We don’t run a lot of news release stuff, nor do we engage in chasing other outlets. We "play our game" which means focusing on what we can do to add to the conversation.
You were a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University in 2017-2018. This came mid-career for you. Why did you pursue the fellowship, and what did you learn to make you a better journalist?
I quit KTVB after 17 years and started a digital agency business. While trying to get that going, I was bored and decided to take my "#BoiseDev" tweets and build a website as a hobby. Then I saw the Stanford opportunity and, as I wrote at the time, I thought it might help with what I thought was a resume problem. So, I applied. Then the digital business took off and I'd convinced myself I wasn't going to go to Stanford. But my then-girlfriend, now-wife, said I should give it full consideration if I was named a finalist. I was, and was interviewed on campus, and I quickly understood why I should do it. It just happened at the perfect time in life. As for what I learned? Well, I wrote about that at the time, too!
What mistakes do you see on news websites? What would you change in the way local news is covered digitally?
Ha Steve, this is Remote Notes not Remote Book. There are many, many things I’d change. I'll just pick one: knock it off with the chumboxes and the programmatic ads. We don't run either (and leave money on the table because of it). But our user experience is much better, we only run ads that I sell directly and every ad brand you see on our site is local. Focusing on the user has worked well for us. On the coverage side, I think less opinion on local news sites would be smart.
Digital journalism is constantly evolving. What are your next steps?
In the next 18 months, we’ll be working on two new products and a new project. For now I'm content to keep building this business out and serving Boise.
Is there anything else you want the readers to know?
#LostRemote forever (Ed. Note: #HellYeah)
NEWS AND NOTES ON THE QUEEN
THE QUEEN’S DEATH WAS ANNOUNCED ON TWITTER: The Palace picked a modern way to announce the death of Queen Elizabeth II. At 6:30pm local time, @RoyalFamily posted:
This went out two minutes ahead of the BBC’s announcement. The Royal Family gave Twitter the scoop. King Charles III has said he wants to modernize the monarchy. This is certainly one sign of that intention.
STREAMING THE FUNERAL OF QUEEN ELIZABETH II: If you don’t have traditional TV service, there are many ways to watch the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II via streaming video. According to Fortune, the following services will stream the funeral live:
Peacock
Paramount+
Disney+
Hulu with Live TV
YouTubeTV
Sling TV (Dish Network)
DirecTV Stream
The funeral is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 19th.
HOW MAGAZINES COVERED DEATH OF THE QUEEN: American magazines were quick to release the covers of their magazines that paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II. People issued two covers - one of the queen when she was young, and a more recent photo. TIME had a simple, tasteful cover.
NON-QUEEN NEWS:
CONAN O’BRIEN GETS A CHANNEL: SiriusXM Pandora is planning on launching a Conan O’Brien channel. The news came out during a conference session with SiriusXM Pandora CEO Jennifer Witz.
IMAGE: Conan O’Brien. Courtesy Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons 3.0 License
Back in May, the satellite radio company acquired Team Coco, Conan’s podcast/production company. Now, he’ll be getting a dedicated channel. Said Witz: “Conan has agreed to a channel that he will curate and produce that will launch later this year.”
APPLE RELEASES LATEST iOS: On Monday, Apple released iOS 16, a significant upgrade for its iPhones.
The new operating system brings a whole bunch of changes to the lock screen, lets you edit a message you already sent, introduces improved search to its Mail app (which has always been kinda meh), and has updates to its Home, Health and Fitness, Weather and other apps. I always recommend waiting on updates until the second version comes out. Having said that, I usually don’t take my own advice…
TOP PODCASTS FOR Q2: Edison Research has released its list of the top 50 podcasts for the second quarter of 2022. It purports to measure actual listenership, not just downloads. We don’t have space to run all fifty, but here are the top five:
The Joe Rogan Experience
Crime Junkie
The Daily
This American Life
My Favorite Murder
BEYOND THE REMOTE
“QUIET QUITTING” ARTICLE FEEDBACK: I’m getting feedback about last week’s article on “Quiet Quitting.” That’s the concept of working strictly to one’s job description and hours, and not going “above and beyond.” One particularly passionate reply came from one Izak Safran, who took his father to task via Facebook:
It's a nonsense term that offloads the blame to workers being "lazy" instead of the problem resting with employers. If your wages don't improve by doing more work, what incentive do you have? Doing more would then only result in getting more to do for the same pay … If two thirds of workers are doing it in the US, that's either a problem with the definition or a problem with the system itself … (It’s) a case of companies trying to have their cake and eat it, and have a slice of pie à la mode.
Izak makes a good point. (And he may be a more passionate writer than his old man.) Maybe “quiet quitting” is nonsense. I still believe in going above and beyond, but not at the expense of being taken advantage of.
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REMOTE NOTES
Newsletter #21
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