How to decide what your local news site should cover and what to skip

Most local publishers know the moment. The calendar is empty, the deadline is tomorrow, and the last three stories published got almost no reads and no calls from advertisers. Publishing more does not fix it, because the problem is not volume. The problem is choosing.

A three part test fixes the choosing. Before any story idea goes on the calendar, it has to pass three checks: readers are already searching for it, a local business would plausibly sponsor it, and public records already cover the facts.

What the test does

The first check is demand. Type the topic into a search engine and watch what it suggests. Look at what people in your town actually ask about: road work, school board decisions, restaurant openings, youth sports scores, job listings. A story with no search demand has to be pushed to readers. A story with search demand pulls readers in on its own.

The second check is money. Ask which local business would want its name next to this story. A piece on new home construction sits next to a real estate sponsor. A piece on restaurant inspections sits next to a food sponsor. Coverage with no possible sponsor can still be worth running, but it should not fill most of your week, because it pays for none of it.

The third check is facts. Public records are the cheapest raw material a local publisher has: council agendas, permit filings, court dockets, business licenses, school board minutes. When a story idea connects to a record that already exists, the reporting is half done before you start, and the facts are checkable.

Who the test is for and who it is not for

The test suits local print publishers and local media operators who already sell advertising or services to local businesses. It also suits established local businesses that want a media arm. If you already know your advertisers by name, the second check takes minutes, because you are matching topics to people you already have relationships with, not cold calling strangers.

It is less useful for a hobby blog with no sales effort, because the sponsorship check depends on real relationships with local businesses. It also fits poorly with opinion writing, since columns are chosen on judgment rather than records. And if your town has no online records access at all, the third check becomes a drive to the courthouse, which still works, just slower.

How to start using it

The scoring matters more than the scoring system. A three means the story has readers, a sponsor and a factual base. A one means it has one of those, and you should know which one before you spend the afternoon on it. Over a month the scores tell you something else too: which topics keep coming back, and those are the beats your site should own.

Expect the first week to be slow. Building the three lists takes an hour or two when the advertiser relationships are new and the records sources are unfamiliar. By the third or fourth week the lists mostly update themselves, because agendas post on a schedule and advertisers renew on one.

One way to speed up the record part

Pulling public records and turning them into articles is the slowest part of the test for most publishers. One way to handle it is a membership like mainstreet gravity, which includes a content engine that turns public records, voice memos and business owner interviews into articles for a news site run under your own brand, with a business directory, events, jobs and obituaries attached. Plans start at $199 a month for software only, and members keep their advertisers and 100 percent of the ads they sell directly. The team behind it has launched 20+ local brands on the same system, with 175k+ subscribers across them.

You can also do the record work without any product. Your city or county clerk posts agendas and minutes, the permits office posts filings, and the courts post dockets. The work is slower but the test runs the same way. The method is the part that earns the attention, not the software.

Questions publishers ask first