Lubbock Lights is a year old this month. We have a lot to celebrate:
- Our website page views have grown 45 percent from our first six months to our second six months.
- Over the first year on Facebook, reach has grown 29,800 percent – which sounds impressive but partly because we’re doing something new. Visits are up 2,700 percent and follows increased 4,500 percent.
- People share our stories on social media at a higher rate than other local media. That’s the best endorsement a story can receive – people telling their friends, “You need to read this.”
- We were just accepted for membership in the Institute for Nonprofit News – giving us nationwide credibility.
Thanks to our underwriters – businesses believing in our mission and supporting us with messages on our site. We’re very grateful. Like any nonprofit, we’re providing a public service and need to raise funds to carry out that mission. We only exist because our underwriters share and support our vision for quality journalism. If you or your business want to support us, contact Development Director Sagen Gonzalez at [email protected].
Granted, our raw numbers are not as large as other local media who’ve had years to build their audiences. But no Lubbock-area media is growing at our rate.
This shows people want journalism – or at least the journalism I was taught and have practiced for decades. Stories should have sources representing all reasonable sides of an issue, assuming they all choose to talk.
Of course, the Avalanche-Journal and television stations do some good journalism. But because the newspaper business model has, at best, struggled, my old newsroom at the A-J doesn’t have the resources to do as many in-depth stories as in the past. Today’s local television news also has its limits – resources and time to tell in-depth stories offering more perspective.
The goal for Lubbock Lights from the beginning was to fill that void and pursue in-depth and interesting stories other media were not.
That’s what James Clark and I set out to do last October with Lubbock Lights.
Our board of directors agreed with the mission and provided resources to start it.
That board is me, Benji Snead, Scott Mann and Marc McDougal. We address the business issues of running the nonprofit. There’s a delineation between the board and the news operation. James and I are responsible for all news decisions.
We didn’t have to publish every day because we were not tied to the daily coverage other local media must do. If we felt a story wasn’t ready, we worked on it more.
We’ve done exactly what we said we’d do.
What’s different – for a dude who ran eight newspaper newsrooms over 33 years – is the structure.
I graduated from Cal State Northridge in the northern Los Angeles suburbs in 1977. If you told me then journalism would be sustained decades later by nonprofit local news websites, I would’ve asked how long you’ve been having delusions or if you took too many drugs in the ‘60s.
But that’s what’s happening all over the country and now Lubbock has joined this trend via Lubbock Lights.
Going back to our growth – what is driving Lubbock Lights as the fastest-growing local news outlet in the market? Content, content, content. The kind of content generating interest, which drives growth. Here are our top ten in page views (click on number to see story):
- 21,268 page views: How fentanyl has become an epidemic in Lubbock County and the tragic story of a former high school salutatorian’s death. This was maybe the best example we’ve done so far of an in-depth story giving people information they needed to know.
- 15,262: J Ferg founder files for bankruptcy with more than $20 million in debts.
- 14,470: Our first story on what Lubbock residents needed to know about picking a power provider. People were hungry for this information. It led to other stories adding up to close to 25,000 page views.
- 11,323: Reagor Dykes bankruptcy briefly reopened, details revealed. We were the only media in the courtroom.
- 10,720: Cagle Steaks venture “out there in the country” has succeeded for 25-plus years. This was a story I wanted to do about the Cagle family’s restaurant/ranch. People love this place which was obvious from page views and Facebook comments.
- 7,565: Current, former owners of 50th Street One Guy From Italy waging legal food fight.
- 7,445: As her husband begins leading Texas Tech basketball, Cece McCasland can be a loud, proud Red Raider. This was about a year ago and a rare foray into sports for us. But Grant and Cece McCasland had a great story to tell and no one had told it.
- 7,405: Bolton Oil Change coming back to Lubbock with two locations in the works. People really loved Boltons before it sold five years ago and were very interested when we broke this news.
- 5,484: Why is Loop 289 down to one lane at Indiana, when will it be done. People have a strong appetite to learn about road projects which we label “Driving In Lubbock.” This, though, I thought was a simple story that wouldn’t be that popular, but I’d noticed how backed up the frontage road had become.
- 4,854: Famous steel house near Lubbock up for auction, asking price $1.59 million but bidding starts at $250,000.
What other stories are good examples showing what we’re about?
- New appraisal district board member wants every-other-year valuations; school districts have serious concerns. This story interviewed LCAD members who wanted the change, the LCAD administrator and school superintendents against it and state Sen. Charles Perry, who said the idea may be good, but needed more study to know the impact. A serious issue affecting our pocketbooks. We explained it in detail from all sides.
- When two Lubbock County commissioners walked out of multiple meetings to assure a lower tax rate, it created serious tension on the Commissioners Court and budget angst. When we started Lubbock Lights, I thought we’d rarely go to Lubbock City Council and County Commissioners meetings. We said we’d look for stories other media wasn’t doing. But because of fewer resources, we found not all the meetings were being covered or not all newsworthy issues in a meeting got a story.
- Another example was the story on why a compromise for the city to fund First Friday Art Trail was pulled.
- Why will future Lubbock major streets be five, instead of seven lanes? Good question and the answer was interesting. Of course it’s about money.
- We wanted to know if, before he took office, a memo from new Lubbock Mayor Mark McBrayer violated the Texas Open Meetings Act. It didn’t because he had not yet taken office.
- How are new schools being built in Lubbock designed to thwart active shooters and other threats?
- Are prairie dogs our furry friends or furry scourge? A lot of people love these little critters – and a lot of people don’t.
- Lubbock mixologist “Cousin” Morin has a fascinating story and we told it.
- Wonder how Cook’s Garage went from a garage to a restaurant to hosting concerts? And how did they get all those gas station signs?
Do you see a pattern, agenda? Hopefully the only agenda you see is finding interesting stories.
And as we’ve done more stories on government, we’re providing another set of “watchdog” eyes. Government works best when it knows people are watching and holding them accountable.
We’ve also had interns – one last spring and one this fall – from Texas Tech’s College of Media and Communication. They get experience and a lot of professional feedback. We get a few more stories.
We celebrated our birthday with a lunch last Thursday. We gave James a t-shirt. As a recent press conference James was covering, someone was overheard pointing at him, saying “He’s the Lubbock Lights guy.” Now he has that on a t-shirt.
What’s next? To build on what we’ve done, growing at a sustainable rate.
I want to write more in 2025 as I transition from a media company I created in 2016 back into full-time journalism.
James has written almost all our stories. I do the editing.
We have different strengths. He’s very good at monitoring government, courts and more – knowing where to find public records. He also knows how to make our website purr.
Besides editing and administrative duties, I’m more of a longform storyteller. I wrote the Cagle and McCasland stories, so we know there’s audience for those stories.
Then we’d like to add two or three more journalists while sticking to our current mission. Which means, for now, being true to our brand of exclusive storytelling you can’t get anywhere else. That’s our filter, our commitment and our promise.
We’re also exploring podcast options eventually because if you haven’t met James Clark, he has a face for television and a nose for news. It’s a good combo and we’re hoping to use that.
Thanks for reading.
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