An Open Letter to Our Local Community, Including the Local Businesses That Serve It

This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Opinion section. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent a reported news position. At Yellow Scene, opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud.

I love you. I really do. And I say that with all sincerity. Nobody champions local more than we do. We believe it is as close to a circular economy as we can get. We believe small businesses aren’t trying to bribe their elected officials. And we believe if you want to BDS, there is an easy fix: shop local.

I often joke that no one in their right mind stays in local journalism. I am a dynamo salesperson, an elite, a rainmaker. I could have left the field to make more money, but I didn’t. And the reasons have only compounded the longer I stay in local journalism and observe our world.

I got my first media job at the age of 21 and fell in love. I got my start in the sales department as an art college dropout. With zero training, knowledge, or experience, I landed a position where they gave me all the leads that never advertised and told me if I could sell them, I could keep my job.

So 21-year-old me, happy-go-lucky and extremely ADHD (I like to spell it Adhhhd), walks into the door of my first lead with the Christmas Guide I was supposed to sell. Promptly, the lady tells me to bugger off—she doesn’t want any.

Not knowing how the industry worked, obviously, I didn’t know what to say or do. So I went home and hand-sketched an idea for her. It was clever and funny, and different. Now, in hindsight, I am grateful I didn’t know that my industry didn’t help you with these things. So I carefully worked the concept out, even hand-lettering it.

Taking it back the next day, I told her I had an idea and held it up for her to see. She proclaimed no one had ever done something like that for her. She liked it, and she bought it. I fell in love. The idea that I could use my art skills to help hard-working business owners was deeply enriching. My career was born.

At this crossroads in America’s history, each of us has a decision to make about who we are supporting and why.

I have always worked in independent media. I was shaped by some brilliant journalists who poured the Kool-Aid down my throat: the 4th estate, the watchdogs, and the idea that democracy needs a free press.

Attorney Matt Simonsen (left) presents Yellow Scene’s argument to Court of Appeals judges (left to right) Stephanie Dunn, Gilbert Román and Craig Welling. (Credit: John Eisele, Colorado State University)

Recently, Yellow Scene appeared at a Court of Appeals hearing in Fort Collins at CSU in our case with the City of Boulder over police transparency. It’s a big deal and could set a state precedent. It’s also scary. But I am proud that we did it, as holding truth to power really does matter to us.

Corporatization is not just impacting journalism. Today roughly 90% of news media is owned by just a small handful of conglomerates. With the Ellisons expanding their control over more major media platforms, the ownership pool has shrunk even smaller. There is no doubt corporatization has had negative impacts on the United States’ democratic process, influencing policies that enrich a small few while consolidating power.

Corporatization is also coming for small business. Today, roughly 70% of vets and dentists are owned by corporate conglomerates. Other industries are seeing this as well—from mechanics and daycare centers to food sources, banks, and medical practices—all being gobbled up and consolidated.

Yet roughly 50% of businesses in America are still owned by a sole proprietor, a number that has declined 20% or more over the past two decades. It is a wonder we have them left, and we should be doing everything we can to protect them.

Downtown Louisville, CO

This is true for local business choices as well. As the last and only locally owned, independent news platform left serving all of Boulder County, you can imagine our frustration when we see our small business owners handing their advertising dollars to Meta.

I love our small business owners, but most are not masters of marketing. Too often it’s treated like the red-headed stepchild. I see folks jump from one shiny bandwagon to the next with less than 1% allocated to marketing, treating it like an expense instead of an investment, with messages that are dry, boring, and cookie-cutter, only to hear them say, “advertising doesn’t work.”

They are right. When approached that way, it doesn’t work. That is why we provide our Marketing Guidebook and Growth Objective Calculator, to help with crafting a strategy. It is also why we offer agency-quality copywriting and design, so the message has meaning instead of just telling people they exist.

But uttering the tired old line “print is dead” is lazy thinking as well. That was a sales pitch from the tech bros to convince business owners to give them all their money. Funny thing: 25 years after the tech revolution, we are so saturated that people are paying not to see online ads, and if they don’t, 86% have “banner blindness.”

Until AI starts spending money in the marketplace, we still need humans. Hopefully, we want a society where all humans can thrive, not just survive.

There is a reason we never gave up print. First, we didn’t buy that print was dead. Book sales only decreased for a few years, and it was about a 5% decrease. Today, books are on the rise. Additionally, e-books only capture about 15% of the sales.

Why would people prefer print over digital? Lots of reasons, but let’s start with the fact that human beings need connections. That is a biological fact. In fact, the more digital that is thrown at us, the more people burn out on it and start to seek authentic connections. Also, fun fact: we retain 7x more information from print than digital, so give your kids books—not tablets.

Yes, we have lots of online coverage, and our website is seen even more than our social media. But we have also learned that a surefire way to have a failed event is to only rely on social media. It takes nothing to like something and move on.

Yellow Scene has been committed to producing authentic journalism since we started. We are very proud of the stories we cover for the community on shoestring budgets. We could have more money if we accepted “sponsored content,” something a vast majority of platforms have taken to publishing. We won’t.

I am sorry, but a story about a realtor or insurance salesperson isn’t a feature. It’s called vanity marketing for a reason. It’s a disservice to democracy, to the advertiser, and to the reader.

And frankly, readers don’t go home on Friday night and watch infomercials. They watch well-produced shows. I can hear the conversations: “Hey, have you seen the latest infomercial? It’s got me on the edge of my seat!”

That’s exactly why we’ve never accepted pay-to-play articles at Yellow Scene. We have never taken money to write about any subject. Our calendar is free, press releases are free, and our journalists are free from influence. So if we wrote about you, it is because you had a story to share. Yellow Scene truly is your authentic local free press.

I have been in journalism my entire life; I am not going to start doing quid pro quo now. The struggles we face aren’t from not being able to get readers. We have a 97% pickup rate in stands and 75,000–100,000 views a month on the website.

After 25 years sustained by advertising, part of our work is helping small businesses understand that content is king, that local media serves the local community, that the latest fad is just that—a fad, and that we would rather help them craft strategies that incorporate a full-funnel approach. We work our asses off for our small businesses and love doing so.

But it sure would be nice if they stopped jumping on bandwagons and giving their money to all the tech-lords.

I started this work as a 21-year-old art school dropout, sketching ideas for small businesses. Four decades later, I still believe the same thing: when local businesses and local media support each other, communities thrive, and yes, people still read.

In the meantime, to remain truly free from corporate influence, we are moving to a sustaining supporter model. Yes, similar to NPR. In today’s world of corporate consolidation, advertising alone is no longer enough, and we have no interest in answering to a board. Being reader-supported means the only people we answer to are our community.

Whether you are a small business owner or a reader, if you value having one locally-owned platform committed to journalism standards in your backyard, supporting local media is a meaningful way to participate in local democracy.

Just $8 a month gets it delivered to your house and helps keep local journalism thriving.

And for the local business owners I care so much about, local media reaches the local community with more impact and for far less than digital advertising.