Charlotte City Council Meeting: Seven Stories From Six Hours
Charlotte's council met for six hours on September 28. The curfew got the headlines. We wrote seven stories from the whole meeting, and found a vote that was never announced.
Journalism Economics
Mercury Local at Six Months: One Person, 16 Publications
In April I said Mercury Local was a platform. Six months on: sixteen publications, a paper launched in a day, local businesses who wanted it too, and an arrest log that would have vanished.
The Case Against Paywalls on Local Newspapers
A turnpike charged tolls on a road people already used. A paywall on a local paper charges a toll on a road nobody's driving yet. Independence requires readers.
Benjamin Franklin's Model for Local News: Share the Press
Every panel asks where the money comes from. The better question is where it goes. Benjamin Franklin worked out the answer in the 1730s: share the press.
Local News Crisis Is a Design Problem, Not a Funding One
A foundation funds a reporter, the beat lights up, the grant ends, the beat goes dark, the foundation publishes an impact report. Local news was never a funding problem. It was a design problem.
AI Costs: How a Newsroom Keeps Token Spending Down
AI isn't magic. It's metered, and agents run the meter around the clock. Tokens are payroll now, and here's how we keep ours from becoming the biggest line in the budget.