I’m wrapping up the annual fall member drive for West St. Paul Reader. Tomorrow is the last day. Whew.

These things are always a ton of work. You oscillate between letdown that no one is signing up and sheer joy when a few people join. There’s also a manic feeling that you have to keep pushing it—you never know what’s going to break through, and you’re afraid of holding something back. It’s wild.

So why do I do it? Well, it works. Once you start doing it, there’s an addiction factor. We don’t see a lot of growth throughout the year, but we get a big jump during member drives. Chicken and the egg, for sure, but it’s an effective cycle (as tiring as it is).

Trying to make local news work financially is anyone’s guess these days. I wrote a post explaining how the economics work (that nobody read). As much as I get tired of the constant pitch, I do think the member-supported model is the best approach right now.

I don’t think paywalls are viable for hyper-local news. You need a discovery factor, and popping up that paywall is just aggravating. There’s not enough advertising to make it work, and I don’t want to plaster the site with ads (those sites look gross and all those sketchy ads erode trust).

I’ll admit the member model—free for everyone, supported by members—is pretty altruistic. You’re relying on people’s good will. You’ve got to be an idealist to see it work.

And that’s me. I’d rather lean into people’s good will and best intentions than put up gates and only inform those who can afford it (told you I was an idealist). I’d rather let the news be the news than hock any kind of deal just to make a buck.

I’ve leaned hard into video for this member drive. Not sure if that’s working or not, but it’s been an interesting experiment. I’m not a video guy, but I’m surprised at my own willingness to try. Aside from the member drive promo, I’m curious about sharing more news in video form. It’s just the reality of reaching people where they are. As much as an idealist as I may be, there’s also the practical side.

I’m rambling a bit here to capture my thoughts at the moment. Remember when that’s all this blog used to be? (No, of course you don’t, because nobody has stuck around that long.)

As much of a rollercoaster as a member drive can be, it does thoroughly ground me when I see members promote the drive and say things like this:

“The West St. Paul Reader is the greatest gift to West St Paul!” –Andy Berndt

Does my heart good.

We’ll see where we end up. This year’s pitch is to level up local news. I’d love to be full time, but we won’t get there in one member drive. But maybe we can take it a level at a time. So far we’re 36 new/upgraded members in, and we’ll see how far one last push can take us for local news.