A Ledger status update — and links to our best work
Plus: A Flyover Friday treat
Good morning! We’re doing something a little different with today’s Ledger.
It’s the Friday before Labor Day weekend, and with no regular editions of the newsletter scheduled until Wednesday, we thought we’d take this opportunity to give you a progress report on how The Ledger is doing.
Ordinarily, we prefer to tell you about some of the many other interesting things going on in Charlotte and not focus on ourselves. But we feel a responsibility to tell you periodically how things are going. Also, as a business-oriented publication, we thought you might be interested to learn how The Ledger is evolving into a local media company.
Three parts to this morning’s newsletter:
Ledger update
A special Flyover Friday video collection
Links to our best work from the last few months
Ledger status update
We’ve provided you with a few updates in the past — from last summer, last November and in March.
Since March, we have made several big changes. We went from a newsletter that was entirely free three mornings a week for almost a year (with no revenue), to one that comes out four mornings a week and is a blend of free and subscriber-only material. That started in early March. We took that approach because we believe it is a more sustainable and better business model than the traditional approach by local media, which relies heavily (if not exclusively) on advertising.
The Ledger has a small number of paying sponsors, and we are incredibly grateful for their support. However, we consider our primary customers to be our readers. We aim to provide them — you — with a newsletter worthy of your time and money. If most of our revenue came from advertising, our incentive would be to create a product that is appealing to advertisers. That would mean producing stories designed to “go viral” online and maximize clicks, which we would then use to sell even more advertising.
We’re not going that direction. We want to produce articles that are focused on your needs — on what you need to know to be an informed citizen of Charlotte, and to tell you honestly about what is happening in our community. We think we are producing original and local information and insights worth paying for — and we now know that many of you agree.
Revenue increasing: This month, we hit our goal for revenue for the entire year, which means that financially, we are right now where I thought we would be at the end of December. In the middle of a severe economic downturn, when other media are suffering because their ad revenue has collapsed, our revenues are increasing because we are producing a reader-focused newsletter that people want. We still have a lot more work to do, but the early results are encouraging.
Like many businesses, when the pandemic hit in mid-March, we adapted. More than ever, people needed smart local news. We increased our production to 6-7 days a week for almost two months, with the help of many of Charlotte’s talented freelance writers. That was the right thing to do for Charlotte, and it turned out to be a good move for our business. Readers responded: We signed up more than five times as many paying subscribers in April than we had counted on.
Adding people: At the same time, The Ledger hired a managing editor, Cristina Bolling. She joined us after 20 years with The Charlotte Observer. Cristina has elevated the quality of the work we are producing, including spearheading our “Hidden Healthcare Crisis in Charlotte” series, as well as telling you about everything from inequality in virtual learning to one of the more unusual pandemic shortages — live crickets. We brought on a Queens University student, David Griffith, as a part-time reporting intern. He has made a number of important contributions, including his recent series called “Beloved Businesses” describing how well-known Charlotte companies are adapting in the pandemic.
Cristina, David and I have journalism backgrounds, but to thrive as a business, we need to do more than just write articles and hope for the best. We have been working closely with our contributing editor, Tim Whitmire with CXN Advisory, to help us set business goals, devise a mission statement and set strategic objectives. He has been invaluable — by which I mean very valuable.
I’m also happy to debut for you The Ledger’s mission statement:
Delivering smart and essential news to Charlotte, one email at a time.
It’s straightforward and direct, just as we try to be in our newsletters. The Ledger is a business-oriented publication, and we aren’t afraid to venture into territory that is not traditional business coverage — especially because big topics such as Covid and school closures affect our economy and all of us in some way. We think our experience and deep knowledge of Charlotte provide a perspective on our community that’s often missing elsewhere. We believe giving you high-quality, important and interesting information makes Charlotte better and helps you live your best life.
We are growing. The trend lines are encouraging. We’re taking a modern, forward-looking approach and building for the future. People use words like “declining” and “dying” to talk about local news these days, but instead of standing on the sidelines mourning a beleaguered industry, we’re working to give Charlotte a new, fresh alternative for responsible journalism. The more we grow, the more we can do, and we can do it better. We see a lot of opportunity to reach new people in Charlotte who want reliable, high-quality local information across many different topics.
People sometimes ask how they can help. Here are a few ways:
Consider a subscription. If you want access to everything we produce at the moment it is ready, including our full Wednesday and Friday editions, become a paid subscriber. The cost is $9/month or $99/year. The yearly plan includes a second email address (collected after sign-up). If you find The Ledger helpful to your work, you might be able to expense it or write it off on taxes. You’re free to cancel at any time.
Tell people about The Ledger. Do you know people who might like what we’re doing? Let them know. See an article you like? Post it on social media, or forward it to a friend.
Send us ideas. We’re only as good as what we know. See something interesting? Learn of a tidbit that others should know about? Wonder about something? Drop us a note. I’m at editor@cltledger.com, and Cristina is at cristina@cltledger.com.
Follow us on social media. The Ledger has learned that there is a website called “Facebook.com,” where people can go and post things and have discussions. (It appears Hollywood even made a movie about it a few years ago featuring Justin Timberlake.) Anyway, The Ledger now has a page on Facebook, which we invite you to follow. We’re also on Instagram and Twitter. Our email newsletter will continue to be the center of what we do, but social media allows us to reach new people and can provide a forum for discussion — sometimes even thoughtful discussion.
Consider a Premium subscription plan. The Ledger has a couple dozen Premium-level subscribers, who are people and businesses who want to contribute at a higher level ($379/year). Premium subscribers receive newsletters for up to 6 email addresses, and we publicly thank them by name every month (if they want to be thanked). They will also be invited to occasional Premium-level-only events, as soon as it’s practical to hold in-person events again. You can pay for a Premium subscription on our Subscriptions page, or if you’re already a paid subscriber and want to upgrade, email me.
Give us feedback. We want to hear from you — what you like, what you don’t. Feel free to email us at any time. In addition, paid subscribers have the ability to comment on every edition by clicking on the “comment” word bubble icon at the top and bottom of every newsletter. We are working to build a community of people who care about Charlotte, and you can help.
Thank you again for your support of The Ledger as we work to build a sustainable and responsible source of information for our city.
— Tony Mecia, Executive Editor
It is Flyover Friday. Usually, we show you some of Charlotte’s biggest developments up close and from the air. But since it’s the day before a three-day weekend, we’re taking a different approach.
Instead, how about some Flyover Friday clips that show why The Ledger should stick to newsletters?
Many thanks to Kevin Young of The 5 and 2 Project, which we are working with on the series. He assembled this embarrassing montage of outtakes from filming over the last few weeks:
We’ll be back next week with a more standard edition of Flyover Friday. You can always find all of the videos on the Flyover Friday webpage.
Ledger highlights from the last 6 months
The Ledger excels in producing original, thoughtful pieces that are different from what you’ll find in most other Charlotte media. Here’s a look back at some of the best work we’ve produced in the last few months. (Some stories are available only to paid subscribers):
Life inside UNC’s ‘Covid dorm’ (Aug. 29)
Why Charlotte’s housing market is so contradictory (Aug. 19)
Levine Museum explores possible land sale, relocation (Aug. 11)
Death in Mecklenburg – numbers have risen. But why? (July 31)
School shutdown sends parents scrambling — in different ways (July 25)
New real estate trend — building houses for renters (July 22)
Summer camp looks different this year (June 27)
The Ledger’s 40 Over 40 Awards Gala, in which we honored people making a difference in Charlotte. (It included an appearance by David Hasselhoff) (June 26)
Pittenger says Lebda spied on his house with a drone (June 24)
With kids ‘invisible’ during isolation, abuse risks mount (June 15 )
The unraveling of Tim Newman (June 3)
Do Zoom meetings favor developers? (May 13)
The exhausting, rewarding work of a nurse who helps Covid patients (May 2)
The doctor is furloughed (April 22)
At-home births draw new attention (April 8)
That’s one big field hospital (April 3)
The last days of Davidson (March 29)
How we’re working with others
Great things happen when you team up with smart people. The Ledger has forged several partnerships with both media and non-media companies from across the city during the past year. They include:
A partnership with 90.7 WFAE, Charlotte’s NPR news station, which shares many of our stories through its website and on the airwaves. Tony appears as a guest Thursdays at 6:40 a.m. and 8:40 a.m. on the station’s “BizWorthy” segment, and Cristina goes on the radio occasionally to talk about stories she’s written for The Ledger. WFAE reporter Steve Harrison has teamed up with The Ledger to report stories that run in both outlets.
We’re working with WFAE, Qcitymetro and La Noticia on a long-term project that will examine the economic effects of Covid on minority communities in Charlotte. It’s funded in part by a grant from Facebook. Cristina kicked off the series with her look at how different communities in Charlotte are reacting to virtual learning. La Noticia translated it into Spanish.
Starting in April, The Ledger teamed up with The Biscuit to present a photo series called “Visions of the Not Normal” showcasing images of communities across the region through the lenses of local photographers. The Biscuit is the newsletter of Charlotte Is Creative, the organization founded by Tim Miner and Matt Olin that puts on Creative Mornings and other events and programs that nurture Charlotte’s creative side.
Last month, we launched a “Flyover Friday” series of exclusive drone videos and interviews with local developers. It’s collaboration with The 5 and 2 Project, a Charlotte video-production company run by Kevin Young.
We’re innovating and trying to do things in a new way. We have a lot more exciting plans for the rest of this year and for 2021. We think you’ll like them. Thanks, and have a great weekend.
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The Charlotte Ledger is an e-newsletter and web site publishing timely, informative, and interesting local business news and analysis Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, except holidays and as noted. We strive for fairness and accuracy and will correct all known errors. The content reflects the independent editorial judgment of The Charlotte Ledger. Any advertising, paid marketing, or sponsored content will be clearly labeled.
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire; Reporting intern: David Griffith