3 reflections from the first 8 months of The Fairfax Machine
The Machine is now officially(ish) in Sleep Mode.
It’s the first day of my new job. That means The Fairfax Machine is entering Sleep Mode.
It’s not the Great Blue Screen for The Machine — I’ll be back here, in one form or another — but it does provide a tidy little reflection point here before I pause.
Below: three takeaways from running this newsletter solo since June.
After that: just a little extra space in your inbox for a while.
1. Media outlets have to offer readers a more tangible value.
I started The Machine intending to focus on three types of stories:
Timely and accessible explainer pieces, like September’s story on Fairfax County’s new data center regulations, that can empower readers to be more informed community members and voters.
Deeply reported narrative stories, like July’s on the struggles of the Dragons Concord, that in some way reflect life in Fairfax and connect readers more closely to it.
Surprising and fun Q&A’s, like August’s with a high school Water Mine worker, that let readers hear from colorful local people whom they wouldn’t in traditional news formats.
I’d also be able to break news when I sourced up, I figured, and I did. But while The Machine quickly found readers through Reddit, its subscriber numbers were a slower climb until the Friday Download launched in August.
That’s when things took off. The Machine had been dawdling below 200 subscribers at the time, but it surged past 500 by the end of November and sits within reach of 700 now.
The Download was an experiment that came to reinforce a clear lesson: Since news outlets are competing for attention online these days not just with each other but with everything else on Earth, they can’t just deliver informative, entertaining and/or artfully written stories. They need to deliver tangible value. For the NYT, that’s cooking and games. For the Download, that meant making readers’ weekends better.
Once readers signed on from there, many of you gave the rest of my stories a shot. Across the board and across all these eight months, engagement here stayed high. That was gratifying, too.
2. Fairfax still has solid news options. They’re just scattered.
I started The Machine both because I missed the mission of working in local news and because I believed the local news that my new county had wasn’t enough. I still believe that today. But my take has taken on some nuance.
Certainly, no publication at the moment dominates the news market in Fairfax or in Northern Virginia as a whole. That leaves a major opening for someone with deeper pockets than The Machine (which does not, in fact, have any pockets at all).
But there are plenty of local stories around in the aggregate, if you can find them. Since the start of the Download, I linked to 34 (!) different sources in its local news roundups, including local TV stations, statewide nonprofits like the Virginia Mercury, politics news sites like The Hill, the Associated Press, and social media.
I found those stories by canvassing every inch of Google News, which I probably wouldn’t advise. I would urge you, though, to find a few local news sources you like and to support them in whatever way you’re able. We need to keep them around.
One source that I’ve come to rely on myself is FFXnow, which does sound, fast, objective and frequently hyperlocal work. And while The Post has pulled back on its suburban coverage, I still know more than enough dedicated, talented and smart people in its Metro section to vouch for it.
3. The Machine did and can succeed.
I didn’t know where The Machine would end up when I started it. I still don’t know quite where it will end up now.
But this first version of The Machine worked, in part because of that news need that it ran into in this vibrant, highly educated, politically active place.
My very first piece was a Q&A with the Herndon mayor, whose response to my out-of-the-blue interview request began: “Local News has certainly been at a loss for the NOVA community with the closing of so many local newspapers (here and nationwide).” My first major reported story (and still one of my favorites) involved generous access from a state senator as she campaigned for Congress. I later got Rep. Don Beyer on the phone from the DNC, without even really asking for it.
Hustle goes a long way in local news, and I spent all that I had. I found and told impactful stories that no one else was, learned history that quickly made me feel like a local, and — yes, once I sourced up — scooped other outlets on the FCPS union contract. Critically, you all kept reading those stories I wrote, and some of you wrote me very kind messages, and some of you told your friends and family about The Machine, which helped it grow further.
All the while, I thought: If I could get just a little help, a little investment, a business manager and one more reporter, I could make a real run at this. It was and is, I believe, true. Just not for right now.
Right now, I’m energized about this new job, which presents a chance to help build out a news division with real ambition and people I admire. I’ll be strengthening the strengths that I’ve tried to bring to you all here, and I’ll be learning a whole lot else that’ll be new.
It will, I think, make me a better news editor, strategist and leader. And hey: If I feed all that into the algorithm, it will make this a better Machine.
Thanks for sharing some of your strategies! Good luck.
Well, shoot. I just found you!