The staff of Lookout Santa Cruz, a tiny 4-year old site created by longtime newspaper industry analyst Ken Doctor, won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting Monday. The award honored coverage of catastrophic flooding and mudslides that began over the New Year’s holiday in 2023 and continued through January.
The citation praised “detailed and nimble community-focused coverage” that tracked the “displacement of thousands of residents and the destruction of more than 1,000 homes and businesses.” The work was particularly notable for practical public service information dispatched to residents in texts and email alerts as opposed to a sole focus on events and damage.
The all-hands-on-deck reporting was accomplished by an editorial staff of just 10.
Managing editor Tamsin McMahon and photojournalist Kevin Painchaud were first on the story as the heavy rains began New Year’s Eve, as much of the rest of the staff had left town for the holidays. Another huge storm hit January 4, and the full staff tackled the challenges of coverage with photo rich stories each day after.
Doctor (previously a friendly competitor of mine whom I spoke with both before and after the launch) had two related reasons for switching from researcher/commentator to publisher. He had grown weary of chronicling years of depressing trends in the newspaper industry and concluded much of it was headed for outright collapse or irrelevance.
At the same time, he had developed theories of how a local digital-only launch could best be positioned in business and news terms for success. Among Lookout’s unusual features is that it is a public benefit corporation – a structure with requirements for keeping profit margins low and demonstrating public good created.
Also while drawing on foundation support and other sources of revenue, it is paywall-protected with full-priced annual subscriptions at $187. That’s an essential part of the business model, but Doctor told me that advertising is the No.1 income stream.
Choosing the structure he did, he continued, “allowed us to be part of the business community, join the chamber of commerce,” and the like. Also Lookout can make editorial endorsements, an option closed to nonprofits because of their tax status.
Santa Cruz has been Doctor’s home for 14 years, a largely well-to-do oceanside county south of San Jose, with about 270,000 population. Its local legacy paper is owned by hedge fund Alden Global Capital’s MediaNews Group.
While some of Santa Cruz’s issues are first world problems like unaffordability, Doctor said he took particular pride that the disaster coverage gave “close attention to all of the county – up in the mountains where there are profound problems and in South county,…which is 80% Latino.”
Doctor has hoped his model would be successful enough to export. A second Lookout in Eugene, Oregon, has been announced and will launch within months, he said, and he has identified three more locations that should be a fit.
I did a piece a month ago on the challenge to nonprofit or public benefit sites in building an audience. Several experts I spoke with praised Lookout Santa Cruz (along with The Baltimore Banner) as striking the right content mix – tough-minded accountability but paired with softer material of broad interest.
Doctor echoed that. If there’s a secret sauce, he said, it’s that “we’re just a community newspaper but in digital format.”
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