Updates from ELi’s Publisher
ELi Managing Editor Julie Seraphinoff and I thought now would be a good time for me to share some updates about our internal operations with our readership.
As a reminder, ELi is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that exists specifically to be a reliable source of factual news about East Lansing. It’s always important to us and our Board of Directors that we keep in touch with you about what’s going on at ELi, since ELi belongs to this community.
Our search for a new Executive Director is going well. We’ve had six people apply and three of them are strong candidates for taking on this role that I’ve been doing for most of the last nine years. (I plan to help with the transition and stick around as a reporter and fundraiser for as long as ELi will have me.) We’re currently in the process of interviewing the three finalists.
Our finances are going OK. Thanks to people who have stepped up with extra donations to help us deal with the flood of news this year, we’re still on track for having just enough money to get us to the next big annual fundraising cycle, which for us starts on October 1. I’m going to be biting my nails a bit, and we may take off a few weeks this summer to make it all work, but I think we will be OK.
One thing that has really helped has been the folks signing up for East Lansing Insider memberships. A steady growth of those memberships has resulted in a helpful revenue boost.
Our reporting and editing crew is doing tremendous work. We are operating with a small core news team: Julie as our managing editor, Luke Day and Dustin DuFort Petty as our two all-around-town reporters, and me. But we are bringing it thanks to Julie, Luke and Dustin!
For example, I hope you saw Dustin’s reports this week on a strange turn in the DTN housing complaint story and on the school board’s tumultuous retreat, along with Luke’s reports on the police oversight commission’s concerns about people with mental health crises and on this week’s school board meeting.
It is truly the case that, without these reporters and our managing editor at ELi, most of us would have no idea what’s happening at these local governmental meetings. We’d be stuck with vague minutes and rumors in most cases.
We’re so grateful, too, to our regular photojournalist Dylan Lees for helping us show you the action, bringing words to life and attaching faces to names. We’ve learned how important it is to have a pro doing photography for us. And we’re grateful to our regular Arts & Cultures reporter Sarah Spohn for continuing to bring us news of special events and local businesses.
A reader sent a nudge asking us to bring some happier news, too. That reader wrote early this morning:
“You all do a great job of reporting the news. We love supporting ELi. It takes much hard work to do what you do on such a limited budget. Thank you very much! I do have a suggestion: so much of the news we read is negative—whether that is international, national or local. Negative news has an effect on people’s mentality. They start seeing everything as negative. I wonder if it’s possible to have a nice balance—reporting on the positive developments and negative ones. Of course positive and negative are subjective, I realize that. But most people cheer and are uplifted when they hear about someone overcoming great challenges or when nature thrives. Just an idea! Thanks for listening!”
Julie and I talked about this over our morning coffees. ELi surveys, readership statistics, and notes from readers and donors tell us people want us to prioritize use of our resources for the “harder” news they can’t get anywhere else. And our instinct as journalists is to chase that harder news, especially when so many tips and investigatory requests are coming in.
But we also know the person who wrote to us is right. And our goal is to take care of this community beyond just bringing the hard news.
So, we looked at the grid that tells us which stories are in the works and we moved up production of a number of the “softer” stories we are working on. I also picked up a story I’ve been meaning to work on – of a resident thankful for a quick response from city workers when a problem arose.
Now I’m going to make a special request of you: If you know of good-news stories we should be reporting, even if it’s just a little something we can include in the free weekly East Lansing Insider newsletter, let us know!
And if you are a strong writer and can be a reporter for us on these happier stories, even better (especially if you don’t need to get paid). Here’s information about our reporting system.
We are excited we’ll be seeing many of you Thursday night. Our special screening of the film “Storm Lake” – a documentary about local news in America – is set to happen at the Robin Theater tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. The event sold out within just a few days of our announcement, which has thrilled us, the Robin Theater staff and the Storm Lake crew.
We can’t wait to see folks there! The weather should be perfect for outdoor dining beforehand, and we’ve got the special mural-viewing all ready to go. I know I’m excited to find out what’s in Sleepwalker Ales’ special-event Storm Lake cocktail! (More info here.)
Want to come and didn’t grab a ticket on time? Good news! Six of the people who had been intending to come have told us today they are now unable to join us, which means we have six tickets up for grabs. We are happy to gift these to the first takers. Just write to fundraise@eastlansinginfo.news and let us know how many you would like. More information about the event is here.