Derek Mead reveals how his team has more than doubled their audience base by showing which news stories make the cut, which ones don't and why
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News avoidance is plaguing the industry, but Nebraska-based Straight Arrow News (SAN) thinks it has found an antidote: context over chaos.
The outlet has grown its audience two and a half times by targeting two distinct reader groups struggling with the modern news landscape - news junkies overwhelmed by noise and "underserved" readers, i.e. those whose local papers have closed.
Turns out both groups share the same problem: they're constantly wondering why they didn't hear about certain stories, or why coverage varies so dramatically between outlets.
"We want to be the news that you can talk to your neighbour about," says Derek Mead, SAN's chief content officer. "People don't even dare to talk about news because they don't know what the other's position is."
Key feature: one of its original tools, Media Miss, spotlights stories right- and left-leaning outlets aren’t covering to help readers navigate the news about topics they care about.
Traditional newsrooms suffer from assumed knowledge, according to Mead. Reporters and editors forget that not everyone follows the news as closely as they do.
Other features break down why each story matters and what it means to readers personally to create "more value exchange with the reader."
Other core features: a standard article has a section on "why the story matters" providing core context, a summary at the top of the news article, and a list of key sources for the report.
"It's hard to break bias but we see a lot of appetite for this kind of work," Mead says. "Rather than calling people out on blind spots we engage with them."
The outlet earns revenue through advertising and video sponsorship, with subscriptions being a longer-term play. But Mead is clear that impact matters as much as income.
"[News avoidance] is a massive problem and we are asking ourselves a lot how to solve it," Mead admits, finding that transparency strategies and directly responding to viewer questions have led to positive engagement amongst his audience.
SAN's strongest demographic is the 30-55 age bracket, split evenly between men and women, with fairly even distribution across the US - but unlike many other news outlets, it's not concentrated in Washington.
Being based in Nebraska gives the 70-person team a different perspective from Washington-focused media. Mead and his team has deliberately hired from all over the US to get more diversity in the newsroom.
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