“The future of daily news in the Spa City.”
You might recognize my tagline, but how much do I really believe that newsletters, in my case the Dispatch, are the future of journalism?
So much that I’ve bet my livelihood on it.
The Saratoga Torch Club invited me to be their guest speaker Monday night, asking me to hark back to when you got the same print newspaper as your neighbor, explain what the heck happened — and then share my ideas for what’s next.
I began my ode-to-newsletters by diving straight into why local news is so important: Local news readers (like you!) are more likely to be involved in their communities and know their neighbors, according to the Pew Research Center. Reading stories about people and businesses you know helps weave the connective tissue that we crave.
“The disappearance of shared information produces a quiet civic loneliness,” reads an article that the club posted about my talk. “People still live near one another, but they inhabit different informational worlds. And yet Tegnelia does not view this moment as an ending. She sees it as a reset.”
I do!
“The newsletter, in her view, represents a structural correction — a return to direct communication between journalist and reader,” the coverage continues. “Unlike social platforms, newsletters are not subject to algorithmic invisibility. They arrive intentionally, in a reader’s inbox, carrying the unmistakable imprint of a human voice.”
They mention that my first Substack inspiration was none other than Dan Rather — who at 89 was a Substack early adapter, launching Steady in 2021. What he did for national news, I hope we can create on a local level here in Saratoga.
The catch? I need help and support — I can’t thank you (yes you!) enough for being here, during my earliest stages as I figure out how to grow a newsletter business. As I said Monday night, “The new model requires journalists to adopt a mindset unfamiliar to many in the profession. Tegnelia argues that the future of local journalism depends on entrepreneurial fluency as much as editorial skill. This shift places journalists in a new role — less like reporters working within institutions and more like founders building them. The language of startups may seem foreign to traditional newsroom culture, but Tegnelia believes it is precisely what local journalism now requires: agility, experimentation, and a willingness to iterate in public.”
I must have talked a long time, because there is so much more. Let’s end with:
“For those of us who care about the future of communities like Saratoga, the implications are significant. If Tegnelia is right, the future of local news will not be determined by the revival of old institutions but by the emergence of new ones — smaller, nimbler, more personal, and more intertwined with the daily life of the places they serve.
“And perhaps that is the deeper lesson unfolding here in Saratoga. The future of local journalism will not be decided by technology alone. It will be decided by whether people still believe their stories are worth telling…”
To read the full article, please visit saratogatorchclub.org.