A few days after Kate Mishkin accepted a job at the Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette-Mail, that newspaper declared bankruptcy. 

Mishkin, then a reporter in southeast Virginia, got a call later that day from then-executive editor Rob Byers. 

You don’t have to come here if you don’t want, he told her.

“And I thought about it for like a day, and I was like – no, I want,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

In Charleston, Mishkin found a place that looked like a local newsroom – keyboards clacking, the police scanner mumbling, reporters and editors hustling by. It didn’t feel like a place in ruin. 

It was a place, though, where many braced for what might seem inevitable at local newspapers these days – corporate ownership, then layoffs, consolidation, more layoffs, until all that’s left is a whisper of what it used to be.

That is not what happened in Charleston.

A year and a half after declaring bankruptcy, going up for auction, getting new local owners and going through layoffs, the Gazette-Mail has more than doubled digital subscriptions. 

It’s a small victory – just 8.5% of circulation revenue. But the changes they made were pretty simple, adhering to the newsroom’s historic mantra of “sustained outrage.” You can read about them today. 

The Gazette-Mail veterans I spoke with have seen dramatic changes over the decades. But in a very short time, Mishkin has seen them, too. 

She now sees a newsroom that’s focused on digital and on readers. That duel-focus means the newsroom is starting to understand what kinds of stories readers value and will subscribe for. 

And guess which kinds of stories those are? 

The watchdog stories that newsroom is known for.

“I think maybe a couple years ago, at least what I was told was those days are kind of over and we’re gonna be kind of a farm for quick hits and pageviews,” Mishkin said. 

Instead, reader data is telling journalists that the kind of work the Gazette-Mail is built on still matters. 

Mishkin put it this way: It’s still worth it to do good stories. 


Charleston Gazette-Mail pre-press department employee Doug Poindexter, left, explains how the plates are made for the press during a tour at Reader Appreciation Night on Sept. 19, 2019. (Photo by Chris Dorst/ Charleston Gazette-Mail)

While you’re here:

• News Catalyst is hiring a developer and deputy director of product. 

• Check out the results of INN’s Major Gifts Coaching program.

• Better News covered how the Greely (Colorado) Tribune and The (Charleston, South Carolina) Post & Courier increased revenue.

• Welcome to the world, Mahoning Matters! 

• Have you read about The Carroll (Iowa) Times Herald, which fended off a lawsuit and now has a GoFundMe to recoup costs?

• Want to work with ProPublica? You have until Oct. 30 to apply for the next class of the Local Reporting Network. 

• Check out the newsrooms and journalists who will work with the Pulitzer Center’s Connected Coastlines project.

• And finally, here’s a follow-up to a story you might have seen on Twitter about the public radio station in Alaska that got flagged by Facebook for posting clickbait. (It had not.)

That’s it! See you next week!