Category: Commentary/Editorial || By

While reading tributes to the late Roger Ebert, I ran across this great quote from Mark Twain:

"Write without pay until somebody offers to pay you," Twain said. "If nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for."

It's been roughly three years since I decided to start pushing the Almanac in the direction of becoming a hyper-local journalism site. I had no business plan, which is a little bit like flying your airplane before attaching the landing gear. I just figured, "Well, I'm going to try covering some news and see what happens."

At Mr. Twain's suggestion, I've decided that maybe I'm meant for sawing wood. That's not to say Tube City Almanac is shutting down, but I'm personally pulling back and changing my direction.

I will continue to cover some stories. Jen Sopko will continue covering the McKeesport Area School District, as time permits. Last week, we welcomed Jacqueline Dell, a student at Penn State Greater Allegheny, who will be doing some feature stories as well.

I'm just downshifting myself a little bit. Over the past three years, I've created for myself a full-time unpaid job here, and there's a word for that ... let's see, what is it ... oh, yeah: "Stupid."

. . .

Last week, as I had an argument in city council chambers over the Pennsylvania Open Meetings Law, it suddenly dawned on me: I don't get paid for this.

Now, in all honesty, I didn't expect to get paid, either. (Although Tube City Community Media does pay Jen, and will be paying Jacqueline, there's just no money in the budget to pay me, and God knows, I'm worth every penny. Ha!)

But the fact remains that I've passed up paying opportunities because I need to feed this beast I've created, and I need to knock that off.

. . .

The other fact is more worrying, in terms of democracy and a free press: I used to make no effort to cover the news. Instead, I just made up whatever silly crap came into my head.

Over the past three years, as I've made an effort to cover things such as city council, readership of Tube City Almanac has actually gone down slightly.

Thanks to Google and Facebook, I can now track how many people click on news stories at www.tubecityonline.com --- and how long they spend reading them --- and news is the least popular content. Sing along to the opening notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony: "Nobody cares. Nobody cares. Nobody cares, nobody cares, nobody cares! Nobody cares!"

Editorials (i.e., the silly crap made up out of my head) and nostalgia are far and away our most popular features. They also take the least amount of effort to write. Do the math.

. . .

I'm not alone in discovering that news doesn't pay. Patch.com, AOL's experiment in developing hyperlocal community news websites, is supposedly losing $150 million per year. As a result, it's focusing more and more on celebrity news and trend stories.

"InvestorPlace.com" (which I've never heard of) says "AOL launched Patch in 2009 without first figuring out how it would make money." Hey! So I wasn't the only one to try that, and I sure as hell haven't spent $150 million. (Imagine what I could do with $150 million per year! I could buy Christy Park and erect a moat around it. The mind reels!)

And keep in mind that Patch.com's Pittsburgh-area websites all focus on higher-income communities with a lot of young people --- places such as Regent Square, Fox Chapel, Peters Twp. and Cranberry. Few people are trying to do local journalism in economically depressed communities such as McKeesport, which are the ones that arguably need it the most.

At our esteemed organ, the advertising revenue is lousy. (What do you think Tube City Community Media gets from Google's ads, for instance? Go ahead, guess. Nope, you're too high.) Subscriptions generate less than $5 per month, once you deduct Paypal's fees.

. . .

It seems to come down to this: Everyone thinks local journalism is important, but no one wants to pay for it. It's like exercise; we all say we're going to get more, but geez, it's a lot of work, and it's raining, and there's a good "House" rerun on. (It's the one where they think it's lupus, but it's really not lupus.)

And the next person who tells you, "Well, we don't need paid journalists --- 'citizen journalists' can cover all of this stuff for free," is an idiot. They need a dope slap to the side of the head.

Or send them to me, and I will 'splain it to them: I am a "citizen journalist," and I have been passing up a lot of stories because I just don't have the time or energy to cover them --- or because I have giant conflicts-of-interest that prevent me from writing about them.

Government needs to have watchdogs. But the watchdogs need to eat and sleep. Hoping that volunteers (like me) will do this stuff for free is ludicrous. (But I don't flatter myself to think that I'm making a huge difference. Most writers take themselves much too seriously.)

. . .

Where does that leave us? Well, I will continue to write, but it's going to be about those things I want to write about, and I'm going to do it on my time.

If you want a story covered, guess what? You're going to have to write about it, and send it in. If you don't send it in, it doesn't get covered. (Citizen journa-ma-lism!)

Over the next few months, I'm going to try to get together with some other people and come up with a business plan and a new direction. Eventually, we're looking at a site-wide redesign and some sections of www.tubecityonline.com are probably going to go away.

In the meantime, I'm in the market for a good saw. To quote a former president, "Want some wood?"

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