Thread by @scottbrodbeck

Despite the @mjenkins shout out in E&P today, I need to go on a rant about how being an indie local site means you're big enough for larger local outlets to rip off but too small to get any respect from nat'l media writers who are oh so concerned about the state of local news 1/

Thanks to some stellar work and copious FOIAing by @howisthatlegal, @ARLnowDOTcom has published a series of articles on a proposed new jail diversion program for the mentally ill
arlnow.com/2019/07/09/arl…
arlnow.com/2019/07/19/res…
arlnow.com/2019/08/16/off… 2/

From the outset these have been exclusives, driven by dogged on the ground reporting. Last week, @rachelweinerwp of @washingtonpost did her own version of the story. Which is fine! She worked off some public docs, did some interviews, and credited us for one particular quote. 3/

The problem is the @AP then picked up the story. Guess who was credited as it spread around the internet.
washingtonpost.com/local/arlingto…
nbcwashington.com/news/local/Arl…
usnews.com/news/best-stat… 4/

This has played out over & over & over again. Remember our "man survives on Coca-Cola" after falling at home exclusive? @wusa9 @patchtweet and others re-reported/aggregated it. Nat'l outlets like @foxnews and @nypost then credited @wusa9 for the story. 5/

Ok fine so this is kind of how it always goes. If you're a @LIONPubs site that has had a story go regional or nat'l, you've been ripped off. So why am I complaining about it now? 6/

It's because national media reporters who love reminding everyone that local news in crisis are absolutely ignoring the @LIONPubs success story of hundreds of grassroots local online news orgs sprouting up around the country, dismissing most of us as one offs. 7/

Yes, @TexasTribune @vtdigger & other well-funded nonprofits (which are awesome btw!) get a lot of attention. But where's the reporting on community-level sites that are doing great work providing an alternative to local weeklies? These sites are unsung outside their towns. 8/

I'm a big fan of @pkafka and his @Recode media podcast, so earlier this year I tried to pitch him on taking a look at what we're doing in N. Va. (and what other LION sites are doing across the country). I never heard back. 9/

To my surprise, as I was listening to his interview with @eramshaw of @TexasTribune, he acknowledged being pitched by people running local online news sites. He didn't name the site but totally dismissed the outfits pitching him as "not a newspaper." Here's the exact quote. 10/

This was said around the 31 minute mark here podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the… 11/

To review, local sites like @ARLnowDOTcom have scoops and accountability reporting good enough for @washingtonpost & @AP to re-report but bc we run some restaurant stories & don't look like a newspaper we're basically dog shit to nat'l media reporters. This is bonkers! 12/

I am convinced that homegrown @LIONPubs -- along with larger regional and state nonprofits -- will be the ones filling the huge local news holes left by deteriorating legacy pubs. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the successful sites will not look like newspapers (which are dying) 13/

The current reporting on @LIONPubs is super sparse. So why is this a problem, why don't we just do our thing and not pay attention to what others say? Well, we're already doing that, but... 14/

It's hard for non-wealthy ppl to quickly grow new things without investment capital. And people w/ $ looking at the media industry (incl. @GoogleNewsInit & @fbnewsroom) read the trades, pay attention to that @nytimes piece on local news that didn't mention @LIONPubs, etc. 15/

To land my plane, @pkafka @sarafischer @bmorrissey @mathewi and others, please don't dismiss small local efforts out of hand. Try to understand them and why they work in their communities. @ckrewson can connect you with plenty of interesting local operators. 16/

With more love from nat'l outlets, we can grow the # of indie local sites more quickly, help would-be publishers learn best practices, and fill more local news voids. But fwiw these sites will not come out of the womb looking like the newspapers they're replacing. 17/17

Addendum: I’d be hard pressed not to credit @howardowens for a lot of the un-newspaper-like things we do, from breaking news coverage to the chronological blog-style format. The things that make us not look like a newspaper are literally the key ingredients to our success.