Why You're Seeing More Posts
#STL deserves a better information environment, and there are folks working on that.
A note about why you’ve been seeing more posts on my Substack. The reason that I’ve been posting more is because I want to get back into the practice of regularly writing. Why? Well, it’s not just because I kind of like writing and it helps fill some time. For the past year, I’ve been kicking around the idea of starting a new local news website. The local information environment has degraded to the point where I don’t think folks can make truly informed decisions about their votes. I’m not just talking about the RFT ceasing publication. The point of local media’s major downturn predates that by quite a bit of time. We’ve had bizarre moments, like when the Post-Dispatch was running articles about Chris Goodson trying to rehab Cleveland High in Dutchtown, while, at the same time, they were running articles about how his Fields Foods chain of grocery stores were closing. For a while, the paper stubbornly avoided mentioning that these were the same person. They weren’t the only outlet, either. Eventually, reporting started to acknowledge that this was indeed the same guy. It was bizarre. This was just one of many instances of basic journalistic malpractice that have been occurring at ever-faster intervals. There was the RFT’s bizarre reporting over the People’s Joy Parade, wherein they only interviewed the Cherokee St. CID/Foundation, totally ignoring the actual parade organizers.
In general, our media landscape has followed the enshittification trend that has enveloped much of our lives. Over at the St. Louis American, the Political Eye spent a solid year becoming increasingly unhinged. Major stories were often ignored, simply to take shots at Ald. Spencer. It eventually devolved into what was a weekly compilation of mean tweets. A few months back, they finally pulled the plug on the venerable weekly column. The Political Eye once provided a real and important counterweight to the Post-Dispatch’s editorial board, which remains fairly conservative. That seems to have been sacrificed at the alter of nepotism. It’s not just that column, though. As #Ferguson gets ever-further in our rearview mirrors, the American seems to have had to cut significant amounts of reporting staff. While advertising seems steady, something seems to have cost the paper the ability to keep more reporters on staff. My guess is that the paper likely had grant/foundation-funded positions that ended and weren’t refilled.
I could go on and on and on, as the local media landscape has really become quite barren. The recent loss of the RFT’s investigative reporting tradition being just the most recent blow. As is, I don’t think there are enough actual reporters left on local publications’ staffs to do much real reporting. I think this has been a big driver of the abysmal reporting standard that we currently see at the Post-Dispatch. I don’t think they still have enough staff to properly cover local news. Instead, we largely get articles that are heavily based on press releases, with little to no research into whether or not the spin given by the press release issuer is worth printing. That takes time, and there just aren’t enough labor hours left in the reporter pool to generate a quality product. This is a significant reason why so much of what we read is essentially narrative maintenance: the labor pool for local reporting is no longer large enough to properly cover things with paid staff. I don’t think that basic reality is going to change. Media layoffs have been a long term trend, and I am not aware of anything on the horizon that will reverse the trend. If anything, AI will likely help publishers continue to cut reporting staff. Maybe you disagree, but I have a hard time seeing AI programs that mostly just compile and reword information from existing sources as being something that improves the situation.
As such, we’re trying to put together something different. It would be a volunteer-based, non-commercial news site focused on local news. There used to be more of this kind of local blogs, but information has followed much of the rest of our society in a pattern of concentration into fewer and fewer outlets. I have been meeting with folks who are interested in the idea and some basic groundwork on a website has commenced. Basic legal paperwork has been filed. While trying to do this non-commercially will be challenging, I’ll point out that this is coming about as a response to the reality that commercial news media is a failing medium. I don’t know anyone who thinks that news site revenue issues are about to significantly improve. Our current model is really in a state of decline that everyone seems to believe will continue, at least in the near and medium term. If the worst predictions about AI taking over a lot of these jobs comes true, and the RFT has already hinted at this future, then we’re likely to see even more erosion in local investigative reporting. If folks don’t at least try different models, we’re likely stuck on this path. That’s our current trajectory. Unless we alter it, we shouldn’t expect that things will improve.
How Would It Work?
Well, the idea is essentially to create something akin to the old KDHX model of things being mostly controlled and run by the folks who are creating the content. My fellow GenXers will be familiar with this, as it was generally the model that zines worked under. While KDHX has long had staff, the shift of control away from the volunteer DJs and programming committee is a more recent phenomenon. This shift columnated in the recent purge by management. At KDHX, volunteers spend hours per week preparing and doing their shows. Why? Because they love music and this city. I know of no reason that we couldn’t find folks who feel similarly passionate about journalism and a better information environment in the city. We will be trying to get things out into the community that is ignored by mainstream outlets. The desire to do so for music brought our community a wonderful station, though current leadership seems to have been happy to flush all that work down the proverbial toilet.
The site would be ad-free, meaning there won’t really be revenue. At the same time, we’ll be the only news outlet that isn’t running ads/branded content for charter schools or other private business ventures that base their business model on public tax dollars. We will not have a financial interest in perpetuating the current dysfunction in our reporting on how public dollars are being spent. It will be a truly nonprofit venture, though I think we’re gonna make it OK for folks to tip writers via their Venmo, etc. accounts. Maybe once or twice a year, we’ll have a pledge drive to try and cover the hosting fees and raise some money for promoting the website. If we’re able to raise a little bit of money, it would be nice to pay for a little social media promotion to accompany each week’s main story. Even if that doesn’t happen, hosting a site isn’t really that expensive. I’m not worried about the nominal cost of having a site up. To put this in perspective, I used to regularly spend money on political projects without an expectation of being paid back. I kept a set amount of $200 dollars in “chaos cash” set aside that could be used to open a bank account and start a political action committee with the state. Whether it was the audit or the soccer stadium vote or any of a number of other issue campaigns that I organized, I lost money on those. I didn’t just volunteer my time, I provided the initial “startup capital” to get the campaigns going. I usually didn’t get reimbursed. So, this will cost me about as much as I used to spend on campaign startup costs. I also used to donate money to political candidates. Not big sums, but they add up. That was money that I spent on what I thought was helping my city. This will be the same. I could certainly spend my money on dumber things.
What Will It Cover?
It will have a heavy focus on local affairs and politics, but I am pushing for the coverage to focus on the people who actually make decisions: our local gentry. While plenty of outlets will continue to cover the soap opera-esque distraction that they currently do, we’ll be more focused on the people with the money. They make far more decisions about #STL, compared to the elected officials that get so much coverage. At the end of the day, our local elected officials usually just rubberstamp things that the region’s wealthy bring to them. While they may act like minor celebrities who control small fiefdoms, the alders aren’t doing much more than push paper for our local elites. As such, I don’t think they should be given the attention that they are regularly granted. That doesn’t mean we will totally ignore them, but the goal is to “right size” coverage of decision making to reapportion public responsibility in a way that enables the general public to see who should actually be accountable for the difficulties that the city faces. Part of that is bringing back better campaign finance reporting. Our local media has mostly joined in the neoliberal messaging that campaign donations don’t really seem to matter much. I think they do. I think you should know the bosses that actually call the shots. One of the main ways to see which politicians are in the pocket of which oligarchs is to look through those reports. This campaign finance coverage will be done in a way that puts candidates’ fundraising side-by-side, and it will strive to remain neutral. We live in a fabulously corrupt city, where said corruption has been almost completely normalized as “how things work”. Just because it has been normalized, the negative effects of corruption continue. Pretending it’s all fine hasn’t actually made things fine. In that spirit of neutrality, I am pushing for a policy of not endorsing candidates. Why? Just look at the P-D and the American. Their editorial boards adopted positions that they were on this or that political “team”, pushing their publications into absurd levels of advocacy via editorial. As much as possible, I will try and steer this crew away from that kind of writing. I believe that it is deleterious to our public health. I really do. It has essentially made it where accountability is obscenely difficult, because every reader know what “team” each paper is with, meaning that lots of folks automatically discount things said by the other “team’s” paper, while the friendly outlets do everything to minimize any negativity on their side. It’s a recipe for dysfunction.
We’ll also be departing from the mainstream in coverage of nonprofits. Mainstream outlets have largely adopted editorial lines that nonprofits can fix major social problems. That’s just right wing propaganda. No serious person believes that nonprofits working way downstream from the structural drivers of social problems can actually fix said structural problems. You wouldn’t know that, judging by local outlets constantly promoting the idea that the private sector, via these nonprofits, is going to solve issues that they simply couldn’t dream of actually fixing. It’s just gaslighting. This also means that we’re not going to constantly hold up local nonprofit leaders as heroes or civic leaders. I work for a nonprofit, and it is filled with people who really, really want to help others. That doesn’t mean that we’re actually in a place to do more than ameliorate the worst excess of a social system that puts profits before people. I don’t think this insults anyone’s effort or work. I think this is just being honest about where we are and what we can really do. By not being honest about the very real limitations that nonprofits face, many publications have essentially been asking people to expect the impossible. I will strive to make sure that is not the case with this website. If we’re ever going to start talking about actually solving major social problems, we need to move past the portion of conversation that envisions nonprofits as driving said solutions. We need to move forward in placing the responsibility for fixing these larger social problems with government, as the state is the only entity that could possibly reorient our economy and society in the directions of ending poverty, making health care a right, and many other important matters.
We are also looking at some arts and culture coverage. This will largely be confined to smaller spaces, including unofficial DIY venues. The P-D and others will continue to cover major concerts at big venues. We’ll be working to make sure that the RFT’s demise doesn’t leave small spaces without a promotional outlet. That’s gonna be true for whether we’re talking music, poetry, art openings… you name it. As a DIY website, the affinity to DIY arts and music is pretty obvious. I hope that comes together. On top of that, we’re looking to cover the literature scene and contribute to said scene by publishing poems and short stories submitted by local writers. We’re even trying to get an original, local comic strip lined up as a regular feature. There are also folks working on a related podcast, which will share the publication’s interest in local labor happenings, as well as the city’s rich history. We’re looking for someone interested in covering for local wrestling and other sports and entertainment that don’t get many column inches in the main local outlets. Probably won’t be focusing on food, as there remain quite a few outlets that focus on dining and drinking establishments.
In all of this, we are striving to be realistic about what a volunteer-driven outlet could produce. That means we wouldn’t be posting something daily, but will be focusing on releasing a decent amount of content on a weekly basis. The goal is to make high-quality news accessible that covers angles that are ignored by the mainstream outlets. If you want a steady stream of AI generated drivel, it looks like the RFT’s gonna be your outlet. We’re gonna be stiving to release less, but better information to the public. Folks already face a firehose of media, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually very informative. We will be striving to produce content that is actually informative.
Will It Actually Happen?
I have no idea. I know a lot of people can’t stand the poor media ecosystem that we live in. Whether or not there are enough people who are willing to volunteer their time to change it is an open question. Like I said, I’ve been meeting with folks and laying groundwork, and I really am hopeful that people are seeing the need for this DIY approach to reporting on what’s going on in St. Louis and surrounding suburbs. Who? Well, if you’ve known me for a long time, the names will be familiar, but it is much heavier on the musicians and artists, while there will be few politicos contributing via the main team. One of the only people folks will really recognize from my political ventures will be writing about sports and leisure. We’re not trying to recreate already failed modes of coverage. Like I’ve already mentioned, the for-profit model seems to be spectacularly failing at doing this kind of journalism. This means longstanding organizations with experienced staffs can’t even make giving people decent information profitable. This will be an attempt at said information distribution viable in a manner not driven by money. If not this way, then how to create a site that will help rebalance our local media ecosystem back towards more honesty will continue to be an open question. If the planning works out and things come together, we’ll hopefully have something up in the fall.
To be clear, I do not see this as something that will “solve” the overall poor information environment that we currently find ourselves in. As previously stated, nonprofits can’t actually fix really big problem, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to stop the worst effects of the current environment. We’ve got to do better. This will be one effort in that direction.
Can You Help?
Maybe! We’re gonna need quite a few writers to even create a handful of stories per week. When doing real reporting, things take time. It’s not like opinion work, where you can just write up how you feel and let it rip. Our goal is to fill a missing niche in the information ecosystem. There are plenty of folks who essentially embellish press releases and put them out as reporting. Likewise, everybody’s got opinions on things. I will strive to make sure that the reporting is good and mostly focused on things that matter. Are you interested in doing something like that? Find me out in the real world. We’ll chat. We’ll also be accepting OpEd submissions from the public. I can’t stress enough that we’ll be looking for writing that is focused on actual issues that the city faces, not whatever soap opera storyline that the city’s political class is trying to distract folks with. Your tip about so-and-so having an affair? Zero interest. Your tip about the latest tax money giveaway to influential donors? Please send it. Got a touring act coming to Sinkhole, etc., and you’re trying to promote the show? Hook us up with that interview. Book a venue? Send us your calendar updates. Your nonprofit’s got a new plan to hire lawyers and then *insert magical thinking here* somehow that will trickle down to social justice? There are plenty of other outlets that lap stuff like that up. Take it to them. Is your workplace in the process of organizing into a union? We’ll try yo help get your side of the story out. Is a narrative being spun by mainstream outlets dishonest? We’ll be where you can go to explain to the public how they are being mislead. The intention is to be public service in the truest sense of the word. My role will be head of editorial, though I don’t think we’ve settled on any official title. As such, I will have an active hand in guiding things towards this model.
I don’t know how much longer I can live in this dysfunctional city, where even our water and sewer infrastructure seems to be following our political leadership’s collapse. The roads also seem to be crossing some event horizon, where basic maintenance is a distant memory. I haven’t had consistently good trash service in close to a decade. I still love this town, though. It hurts to watch how bad the rich people have screwed this city up. At this point, our local gentry have stripped mined the city’s resources, leaving us with a largely non-functional city surrounding their gleaming towers and stadiums. As long as I’m around, I figure I should keep speaking up for my old friend. We had a lot of really great times together, and I want to honor that history. I really hate to see it getting used and abused, even if it is simultaneously hard to continue living in conditions you would expect in a failed state.
What Stays On Substack? Long-form Money Stuff
So, I’m planning on probably keeping this personal blog going, no matter what. The long-form money things I write have a niche audience, and I know most people don’t want to read long things about money. I will likely shorten or subdivide things I write on here into more accessible pieces for the website. There’s important stuff in there that people need to know. I’ll probably write up the highlights, while leaving the seven page articles about the budget over here, where my fellow nerds can continue reading about budget stuff.
Anyway, that’s why you’ve been seeing more from me. Expect that trend to continue.