The goal of my periodic Publisher’s Note emails is to give readers a peek behind the scenes of Rough Draft and to share some of my thoughts on the business of local media.
🗓️ It’s hard to believe that the FIFA World Cup starts this week. It feels like we have been talking about it every day for the last year, but that may be because we have. I don’t think I have had a meeting this year that didn’t mention AI or the World Cup.
🍻 During my two decades in New York, World Cup summers were always my favorites, because no matter who you’re rooting for, there was a bar somewhere with that country’s passionate fans. I expect that for most of us here, too, the best memories of this summer’s tournament will be made at the various watch parties planned around town.
🇲🇽 I hope to be at Daily Chew this Thursday, watching the opening match between Mexico and South Africa at the legendary Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. I was lucky enough to see a match there in 2018, and even though it was just a random Mexican league game, the history of the stadium, which has hosted two World Cup Finals, is palpable.
⚽ Whether you have tickets to every match or are trying to figure out what “offside” means, I hope you get to enjoy some of the magic of the World Cup. Of course, you can follow our guide to the off-the-field events here, and The Guardian has a look at each side in the 48-team field.
The news about the news
😔 The good vibes I’m feeling over international soccer were tempered a bit last week by a constant drumbeat of more troubling news about the media industry.
📍 Very close to home, the Atlanta Civic Circle (ACC), a nonprofit covering housing, government, and labor, announced it was shutting down, effective immediately. It’s a big loss for Atlanta residents and the media community, but it highlights how hard it is to make local news a sustainable business. The closure is also a reminder that nonprofit status isn’t a business model; it’s a tax status. These news organizations still have to build audiences, earn support, and navigate growing headwinds, including news avoidance, donor fatigue, and a political climate increasingly hostile to journalism.
💻 As I told the AJC for its story on the shutdown, ACC was “covering topics that rarely drive clicks, but matter to people’s daily lives,” and audiences aren’t always “willing to pay for hard news, no matter how important it is to their lives.” Whatever the reasons, and there’s a mix, Atlanta’s journalism community is worse off, and I hope the talented reporters land somewhere local.
Further afield
📰 The Pulitzer Prize-winning Minnesota Star Tribune, a darling of the industry, announced it’s laying off 15% of its staff. And, of course, there is the drama playing out at CBS News, as new leadership attempts to inexplicably remake the venerable “60 Minutes,” the top-rated news program on TV, firing longtime journalists and producers who led the show for years, including to a 9% ratings increase last year.
News publishers, including Rough Draft, are also navigating a major change in Google’s search results, and we got hit with another price increase on newsprint. (Did you know we print 100,000 papers a month? If you want to get our paper via home delivery, click here.)
All of these reasons are why we are increasing our efforts to grow our direct relationships with our audience through newsletters (If you’re reading this, please send it to five of your friends and encourage them to subscribe), the newly launched Rough Draft Dinner Club, and we are continuing to build a membership program.
🙏 Whether it’s Rough Draft or another independent, local media company, please do what you can to support, subscribe, or promote the work we are doing!
Back to AI
Every business in every industry is trying to understand how AI will change what they do and how they work. Because our currency with readers and advertisers is trust, news organizations have to tread particularly lightly to avoid catastrophic breaches. We currently use tools like Claude to help us with editing, search engine optimization, marketing ideation, and data analysis.
We also plan to begin using AI tools in other ways. One will be using Claude to rewrite press releases, providing coverage to nonprofits and small businesses that we would otherwise not be able to do. We commit to disclosing to readers that AI was used in the content generation, and every piece will be reviewed and edited by a human.
If it seems too good to be true…
🤦♂️ For my fellow publishers, here’s a cautionary tale.
Earlier this year, we learned a hard lesson about affiliate marketing. We had been publishing disclosed, sponsored content for programs that, if I’m being honest, I knew were flirting with the darker corners of the web. Nothing illegal, but things like “grow your Instagram following fast” schemes and online gaming. The alarm bells were there, but I didn’t heed them because, frankly, the money was too easy. These marketers were basically piggybacking on our high search result rankings.
❌ But, the powers that be at Google threatened to penalize our search rankings for it. The very clear disclosures stating that these stories were paid didn’t matter, and we have since removed every piece of that content and walked away from the revenue stream entirely. If an opportunity feels like free money, there is probably a catch. Consider this your warning.
Objects in the mirror
What I’m reading:
- “The Running Ground” by Nick Thompson: My running days are over, but I’m forever a fan of the sport, something I inherited from my father, who was a founding member of the Atlanta Track Club and owned a running store at the beginning of the sport’s early ‘80s boom. His original “There Is No Finish Line” Nike poster still hangs in my office. This sweet book blends the complexity of a father-son relationship with the purity of running amid a backdrop of the media industry.
Where I’m eating:
- The Georgia Grown Dinner at the Atlanta Botanical Garden: Figure out a way to get a ticket to these periodic dinners. I was lucky enough to be there the night Alan Byers worked his magic with local ingredients, which he does on the regular from his perch at Decatur’s The Deer and the Dove.
- The new Casi Cielo on the Beltline is stunning and delicious, and owner Juan Henao is a hospitality wizard.
- Hermanita: I know I talk a lot about Tio Lucho’s, but this Monday night pop-up of Peruvian street food may be the best meal I’ve had this year.
