A letter from the editor
An update for you on our progress: The Ledger continued to grow and to do more in 2022 — we'll keep it up in 2023
It’s that time of year when organizations look back on the year that was and look ahead at the year to come.
I’d like to tell you about The Ledger’s 2022 and our plans for 2023.
While we have great and interesting people on Team Ledger, we’re modest people who don’t usually like to talk about ourselves. However, we feel a responsibility to our readers to clue them in to how we are doing.
The short version: It was another year of growth for us, in terms of what we’re able to offer Charlotte, and in terms of more internal measures of our business’ health, like revenue and readership. I believe our journalism, which we place at the center of what we do, continues to grow stronger and broader. We’re breaking more news, illuminating more trends, and introducing you to a wider range of interesting and important people in our community.
It’s fun to step back and recall all the fun things we have done: This year, we started a fourth newsletter, on Charlotte FC. We added a regular podcast. We held our first big in-person event, the 40 Over 40 awards. We forged a new partnership with N.C. Health News to enhance coverage of health care. We started an events board. We published a book of printed local crosswords. And in June, managing editor Cristina Bolling and I added our first full-time staff reporter, Lindsey Banks.
For a full-time team of three, we are doing a lot. But we couldn’t have achieved our successes were it not for many people who help on a part-time or contract basis, like writers and editors and business-side folks.
Most of all, our growth would be impossible without the support of our readers, who pass along ideas and tips and encouragement, and — crucially — fuel our operation by subscribing. (We make more than half of our articles available for free, but independent local journalism is not free to produce.)
Especially nowadays, it’s heartening to see people rallying around an idea — the idea that Charlotte deserves a smart, responsible source of local information like The Charlotte Ledger offers. We’re but one of many organizations that provide news in Charlotte, and we’re carving out a following among people who want original, reliable information from experienced writers.
We think we’re fighting for the future of local journalism. We’re proving that there’s a business model for smart, engaging reporting and writing on a local level — one that genuinely serves the needs of readers. The Ledger is not bankrolled by big advertisers, which means we don’t have to deploy the kind of tactics many people (including me) find annoying — like writing confusing or mysterious headlines engineered to maximize clicks, or using scarce resources to write breathlessly about food or lottery winners, or obscuring whether an article is honest opinion or a cleverly written ad.
We choose to put our readers and our journalism first.
Because we have the support of our readers, we can do the work that they value, instead of working to maximize website visits by appealing to internet strangers. While other media companies nationally are nervously eyeing a drop in advertising and have started layoffs, we’re not sweating it, because we don’t rely on advertising revenue to pay the bills. There are big benefits to being reader-supported.
The other day, I posted on LinkedIn about a recent year-end team gathering. Here are the replies of a few Ledger members:
“I read (almost) everything you write! A focal point of my day.”
“You’ve built something that has momentum and delivers value to the city of Charlotte and the people who live here.”
“The Charlotte Ledger is fast becoming the go-to here in Charlotte. Good viable cities have reliable local investigative news sources. Please continue building out your platform, it is awesome.”
The growth in our newsletter subscribers has been remarkably stable since our inception in 2019. Here’s the chart of total subscribers (free plus paid):
And here’s the chart of paying members, from when we first started offering paid memberships in March 2020. (The figures include 860 people who receive our paid version through yearly or Premium memberships, which come with subscriptions for multiple email addresses.):
(I would add that we have achieved those paying subscriber numbers without resorting to unsustainable “$1 a month!” introductory pricing schemes, which we don’t believe in because they are unfair to loyal, longtime customers.)
Our revenue from paying members, which accounts for the vast majority of our budget, rose 34% this year compared with 2021. Our expenses also rose, as we reinvested that money into local journalism.
I’m proud of what Cristina, Lindsey and I and the rest of our team are accomplishing with The Ledger, and I’m not sharing this to brag. I’m sharing it to let you know that in the middle of a tough time for local journalism — when layoffs and cutbacks are continuing and when many are concerned about the future of local news — we’re growing. We’re doing it by deploying 100% of our resources toward Charlotte and by producing smart and high-quality work, in a modern format that our customers seem to appreciate.
If you have thought about joining The Ledger in the past, why not do it today? Your support will help us improve, and you’ll unlock full access to everything our growing team produces.
What’s next: In 2023, The Ledger will keep doing what we do best: producing eye-opening newsletters that save you time and make you smarter about Charlotte. We’ll keep our members up to date on important topics that otherwise receive little or no attention, such as brewing school reassignment battles and important shifts in Charlotte’s economy.
As we have done up until now, as our revenue increases, we’ll reinvest more into reporting and writing. The more we grow, the more we can do. To make sure we’re around for the long haul, we don’t spend money we don’t have, which seems like a prudent approach especially if the economy hits a rough patch as many economists predict.
One day, we’d like to have more reporters who focus on different local topics and allow you to pick and choose which ones interest you.
From where we sit right now, at the end of 2022, we’re happy where we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re going. Thanks for reading.
—Tony Mecia, executive editor
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Wishing you all the best this holiday season
