Local journalism thrives amid news overload

I don’t know about you, but things seem busier than ever. A real estate friend assures me that they are “COVID busy,” referring to the days when interest rates were low and sales volume was high. A Gen X latchkey kid, I’m very much relating to today’s overscheduled children shuttling from one after-school event to the next.  

Complain as I may, I love it. As I’ve said many times, I think I created the perfect job for myself.

A critical part of channeling my passion into a sustainable and successful local media business is being present in the community. For the Rough Draft team, that means having our reporters at city council meetings, art openings, and sponsoring local nonprofits. For me personally, it means managing a calendar packed with civic, cultural, and corporate events. 

From the Atlanta Press Club Newsmaker event with Mayor Andre Dickens to a Greater Perimeter Chamber luncheon where I joined a panel on local media, to the Atlanta Opera, Move For Grady, Piedmont Park Conservancy, and World Affairs Council of Atlanta, and many more that I’m regrettably forgetting, being out in the community has built relationships and keeps my energy up.

The most rewarding recent event of all was the Inman Park Festival, where the Rough Draft team and I met a steady stream of readers and heard firsthand how you rely on our papers, website, and newsletters to keep you informed.

At a time when we know people are tuning out the news, it’s refreshing to know that our audience is growing. Whether it’s through our newsletters, website, social media, or print products, we are reaching more readers than ever and, as somebody told me recently, we seem to be “punching above our weight.”

I think we are seeing growth because we produce products that don’t overwhelm people with doom and gloom, are unbiased, respect readers’ time, and provide exceptional results for our advertisers. 

Tuning In. Or Out.

I haven’t seen it yet, but apparently “The Devil Wears Prada 2” opens with a scene about a newspaper being shut down and the entire staff being laid off. As my colleague and Atlanta’s only regular local film reviewer, Sammie Purcell, wrote in her review of the film, “triggering,” and “a pretty apt encapsulation of the hellscape of modern journalism.”

RELATED: Sammie Purcell’s review: “The Devil Wears Prada 2’ – the nostalgia machine comes for us all”

In addition to all of the other real and existential threats to the media industry, news avoidance is something that’s been on my mind lately. 

Even in a place like Atlanta, where there are myriad options for local and national news, a recent Pew study, “Americans’ Complicated Relationship With News,” found that about half of us say we feel worn out by too much information. 

That tension between overload and avoidance played out on April 25, when a gunman breached a security barricade at an event where the president and much of his cabinet were in attendance. 

I heard about it from a dinner companion who relatively casually said, “There’s an active shooter at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.” While I glanced at my phone, most people at the dinner table didn’t. There was no noticeable reaction in the bustling restaurant. 

Dylan Byers, who covers the media for Puck, was evacuated from the event and ended up at a bar a few blocks away, where the NHL Playoffs were on the TV. Nobody seemed aware of what had just happened at the nearby Washington Hilton — the same hotel where John Hinckley Jr. shot President Reagan in 1981. 

When his group asked the bartender to switch to CNN, a manager intervened, citing a policy against showing political content.

In a post on X, Byers tried to imagine what that same bar would have looked like on March 30, 1981, with every television airing wall-to-wall coverage, passersby crowding in off the street.

“It’s unnerving,” he wrote, “how desensitized so many people have become — to shootings, obviously, but also to political violence and the abnormality of the moment.”

I don’t think it’s indifference. I think it’s exhaustion.

The national news cycle has been relentless — the chaos in Washington, a stressful geopolitical landscape, and an economy that is booming for some, but suffocating for many. At some point, people stop reaching for their phones not because they don’t care, but because they need a break from caring too much. 

Of course, then there’s that time you think sports may be a nice escape from the news, and you settle in to watch the Hawks in Game Six of the NBA Playoffs, only to realize Atlanta sports fans wrote the book on existential crises.

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Objects in the mirror

What we are working on:

• Starting this Wednesday, Laura Scholz, one of Atlanta’s most respected lifestyle writers, will be curating our wellness content, including The Reset by Rough Draft, a new weekly feature in Rough Draft that will launch as a stand-alone newsletter in June. Subscribe here.
• Welcoming a handful of summer interns, including one UGA student through the Atlanta Press Club’s intern program, supported by Georgia Power. We also have students from the University of Alabama, Berry College, and Oglethorpe University.
• Rebooting Stacks, our monthly newsletter about books.
• A 10th Anniversary issue for the City of Tucker in November.

Where I’m eating:

• Manuel’s Tavern – Don’t sleep on their salads. I get the Greek with grilled salmon, and my insider tip is to ask for it in a bowl; they are too big for the plate. Bring a sweater because their A/C is the real deal.
• TBB 122 – A charming morning bakery that doubles as an all-day restaurant on a tree-lined block in Downtown Alpharetta.
• Tio Lucho’s – The chicken and Tio’s Salad will have you rooting for Peru in the World Cup, even though they didn’t qualify (sorry, Peru fans).
• Lily Sushi – I prefer the Milton location, but everything I’ve had there is a “wow.”

What I’m reading, watching, and listening to:

• Kacey Musgraves, “Middle of Nowhere.” I didn’t know much about her when a friend tipped me off to buy a ticket to see her at The Tabernacle in 2018, before she blew up. Her newest album has been on repeat for the two days it’s been out. Watch her recent segment on “CBS Sunday Morning.”

• “Strangers,” by Belle Burden – A New York Times “Modern Love” essay that has become a No. 1 best seller. I listened to the audiobook in one day. It’s a riveting story of trust, betrayal, and redemption.

Thank you for supporting local journalism. Please reach out to me with any feedback or suggestions at keith@roughdraft.news.