There's a price to pay for covering real news

One of the most challenging aspects of developing a business, especially in this economy, is generating enough revenue to sustain it. This is certainly true of media, which is why the public has so few options in getting viable news. NSBNews.net takes great pride in carrying out its mission of reporting the news.

When we launched NSBNews.net in April 2008, I had very little revenue to work with, but enough to get started. My strength was and is the news or reporting side of the 24/7 website. Advertising and marketing are an Achilles heel not only of new mediums like our's, but the traditional media outlets too, with small businesses reluctant to part with money in this lousy recession. Still, we are becoming a player without compromising our news coverage for the sake of trinkets.

For the better part of a decade between the mid-'90s and 2000s, I was a hard-charging metro breaking news and investigative reporter. I had very little understanding of advertising. I just assumed advertising representatives went out and sold ads. What I have discovered, however, is that that the line between news and advertising has become blurred. The print media and municipal and county government have strong ties.

The ultimate litmus test of this is the American Music Festival fiasco of 2010 that led to the ouster of the president of Daytona State College (with a million-plus severance), the college itself with a glaring shortfall of $1.5 million and those responsible for the mess moving ahead like nothing happened; some of them among the most powerful and influential movers and shakers in Volusia County.

The true story has not been told and those most intricately involved seem more content to move on to other things. So where was the media in all of this? With oodles of advertising revenue, the coverage was predictably promotional.

Nobody was asking where the money was coming from to fund it. Not until it was too late. So we've come up with a new investigative report on the AMF fiasco: "Show Me the Money."

Even a simple public records request to the college was met with delay and then a formal letter via e-mail from an expensive law firm for the college reading me the riot act on having to pay for such documents.

Yes, the college is going to mediation with the concert's cultural foundation promoters who failed miserably, but does that let the media off the hook in reporting the news?

Let's be real about this: The reporting became more pronounced when the media outlets were getting stiffed like the multitude of other vendors. Apparently, everyone has gotten their's but the college, which is now experiencing shrinking enrollments. For years and years, the daily newspaper has reaped the benefits of advertising with the few weeklies getting lesser amounts.

The cozy relationship between government and the daily newspaper ownership led to substantial sums of taxpayer money going into the building of the "News Journal Center," which ultimately led to a lawsuit and the daily exchanging hands and nearly 500 employees being jettisoned to unemployment.

Then came the AMF and the marketing agreements that was to be a win-win for everyone. The bottom fell out. And everyone was pointing fingers. Florida espouses transparency in government, but there are so many friendships between the public and private sectors and it revolves around tax monies -- bed taxes and community redevelopment agencies. Those are what keep the coziness.

Consider this example: The daily does an intensive look at the highest paid people in government. Conveniently missing from the list? Hospital administrators whose entities receive indigent care monies borne by taxpayers. Those same hospitals are key advertisers. Reporting the news, it seems comes at a price.

Two years ago, NSBNews.net wrote a series of stories regarding CRA funding for an artificial Christmas tree on Canal Street. NSBNews.net has been a member of the Southeast Volusia Chamber of Commerce since our inception. Yet we are the lone media organization not included as a chamber media sponsor. If we pull out of the chamber, then NSBNews.net is labeled as anti business. The annual $250 fee is a lot to our operation.

Invariably, NSBNews.net has been on the outside looking in on revenue for our coverage of countless community events that are publicly funded directly or indirectly. Why? Because we report the news. Open up one of the local weeklies and try to find even one story critical of government.

Invariably, NSBNews.net has been on the outside looking in on revenue for our coverage of countless community events that are publicly funded directly or indirectly. Why? Because we report the news. Open up one of the local weeklies and try to find even one story critical of government.

We did a little homework and found the SEV chamber's daily analytics -- unique visitors online -- is less than 10. For the weeklies, it's less than 20. For NSBNews.net, it's 1,200 daily. A unique visitor counts one time in a 24-hour period, no matter how many times that person accesses a particular website.

The chamber and the weekly Observer that isn't even in New Smyrna Beach anymore continue their close ties. Why? Their former president, Robert Lott, and his wife, Michele, own the paper and operate it out of their Edgewater home. They were on Flagler, with the newspaper and his failed Lott Financial Services, but were told to leave last spring because they couldn't pay the rent. They lay claim to New Smyrna Beach with their newspaper via a post office box.

The Southeast Volusia Chamber of Commerce lists all of the local media outlets as its sponsors with the exception of one: NSBNews.net, which has been a chamber member since 2008 and has paid $250 each of the past three years in membership fees. NSBNews.net, the only actual newspaper still in New Smyrna Beach, covers more events here than all of the other media outlets combined. 

Everyone is a media sponsor except for NSBNews.net. The chamber has its 500 paid chamber members in a three-city community that has 8,000 businesses. We will likely renew because it's part of being in the community. But at the end of the day, NSBNews.net will continue reporting the news while the local print media glad handing continues unabated for the advertising that comes directly or indirectly from the taxpayers.

At least the Southeast Volusia CVB, the fancy county name for ad authority (known locally as the New Smyrna Beach Visitor's Center) recognizes NSBNews.net's contributions to the community and our fast-growing readership. And you'd think NSBNews.net would sell out to the ad authority because NSBNews.net is carrying banner ads. Nicole Carni, its director wants heads in beds and she knows we have the readership not only in greater New Smyrna Beach, but also in the Orlando market. Just ask her the impact our advertising for the open house there had on the attendance.

Consider these numbers: NSBNews.net had close to 40,000 unique visitors last month and nearly 70,000 page views. We have one of the largest, if not Volusia County's largest social network on Facebook with more than 9,000 contacts. We have 2,500 e-mail subscribers.

The Volusia County Council cut Carni's $110,000 salary by at least $16,000 Thursday, even though she combined the marketing and director's position into one and has already saved twice what was cut since her hiring in June. You won't read that story in the daily or the weeklies, which also have websites. But you'll read it here on NSBNews.net because it's real news.

We'll also have extensive coverage of the county budget, tonight's Cudas' football game and this weekend's NSB Jazz Festival. We take a back seat to no one in covering greater New Smyrna Beach. My wife Sera and I are everywhere, seemingly seven days a week. The 500 videos in our online catalogue are a testament to that. One thing NSBNews.net will not do is compromise its journalism mission of reporting the news. Our growing list of advertisers understand and appreciate that.

We'll also have extensive coverage of the county budget, tonight's Cudas' football game and this weekend's NSB Jazz Festival. We take a back seat to no one in covering greater New Smyrna Beach. My wife Sera and I are everywhere, seemingly seven days a week. The 500 videos in our online catalogue are a testament to that. One thing NSBNews.net will not do is compromise its journalism mission of reporting the news. Our growing list of advertisers understand and appreciate that.

This is why NSBNews.net is in the unique position to report the "real" news like we did a year ago with New Smyrna Beach's planning fiasco and the more recent problems in Oak Hill that led to the firing of its clerk/administrator and the demise of its police force. It's not just the stories, but the growing numbers of key elected officials that are either supplying columns or regular interview segments.

Those newsmakers are with us because they know what Carni, Mayor Adam Barringer, State Rep. Dorothy Hukill and County Council Chairman Frank Bruno recognize: The true value of real news reporting and the exposure that comes with it.