Emily Cassel was proudly appointed the first female editor-in-chief of the Minneapolis-based City Pages in early 2020. Six months later, she and everyone around her were out of jobs.
Cassel, who moved to the Twin Cities from Boston four years ago to serve as food and drink editor, was let go last October when the Star Tribune — which had bought the alt-weekly in 2015 — shuttered it permanently. The 41-year-old magazine, a staple of the metro’s music scene, had become the most high-profile victim of a pandemic-era decline in arts and entertainment advertising.
On Monday, Cassel and three other former City Pages editors announced a rebirth of sorts. The four journalists unveiled Racket (RacketMN.com), a writer-owned, writer-operated, almost ad-free, purely-digital magazine that aims to capture the same pointed perspective on news and culture as their former employer.
When City Pages closed, Cassel said, “I truly feared for the local music, arts and fashion industries. When you look at the coverage that’s out there, it’s very slim. That’s exactly the void we are trying to fill.”
Racket is the latest addition to the growing online-only media landscape in the Twin Cities, one which, despite the challenges of the pandemic-era economy, has in recent months spawned newcomers such as the immigrant-driven Sahan Journal, newsletter-based Axios Twin Cities and the Minnesota Reformer, a nonprofit news outlet that keeps a close eye on state politics.
It’s the same general battleground for clicks and eyeballs in which older online-only publications such as MinnPost and the conservative Alpha News toil daily.
ROOM FOR ONE MORE?
At the same time, with traditional revenue sources under increased pressure, established, mainstream news organizations such as the Pioneer Press, Star Tribune and Minnesota Public Radio have stepped up efforts to capture digital readers and subscribers/members through free online newsletters, podcasts and other online offerings.
In an increasingly crowded media environment, is there room for one more? Will readers pay up to track what yet another set of journalists dish out?
“As soon as the shutdown happened, we kind of looked around at each other and thought what if we tried to do this on our own, and gave this a go as a truly writer owned-and-operated publication,” said Cassel, in an interview Monday. “We didn’t know if that was possible.”
Calls to former Deadspin staffer Tom Ley — who had launched the employee-owned Defector sports blog with other former Deadspin writers — reassured them the digital sky was the digital limit.
The Chicago Independent Media Alliance, for instance, has created a single site where readers, in one click, can donate to 43 different independent online journalistic initiatives, many of them recent nonprofit startups chronicling Chicago neighborhoods or specific beats, such as arts news or LGBTQ news.
The RacketMN.com website — developed by the company that created Defector.com, Alley — is still mostly just a landing page, but the editors said readers should look for an official launch of journalistic works on Aug. 18. What readers won’t find — and this is a big departure from City Pages’ advertising-based print revenue model — is a free copy of Racket MN at a bar.
“We’re asking people to buy into this with their hard-earned money,” said Cassel, who is promoting three subscription tiers, the cheapest starting at $5 per month or $50 per year. “Everything we publish needs to be of consequence, whether it’s an entertainment story or a deep dive on the news. It’s one thing to be at a bar where people happen upon (a free weekly magazine). It’s another thing for people to have to know it exists and seek it out.”
“That’s a pretty scary shift, to be honest,” she added. “But I’m feeling pretty confident. The paywall itself is pretty generous. We’re not going to cut you off after five stories. It’ll be somewhere in the 20-story range. On one hand, I see the need to pay for journalism. On the other hand, it feels like you’re shutting people out.”
DIFFERENT APPROACHES
The upstart outlets approach both the craft and the business of journalism from different angles.
Axios Twin Cities, for example, operates with the mantra of “smart brevity,” according to reporter Torey Van Oot, who left the Star-Tribune’s political team to help launch Axios’ local operations in January.
While Axois has a news website, the core of Axios Twin Cities, like more than a dozen similar efforts nationwide, is a free Monday-through- Friday newsletter emailed each morning. It’s a quick summary of the top business and political stories of the area, via a combination of aggregating work of other outlets and original reporting from the local staff of three full-time journalists.
The newsletter and staff are supported by ads in the newsletter itself, although the nationwide Axios brand includes a host of other news outlets and news-related products — potential sources of revenue.
Van Oot said the newsletter has nearly 80,000 subscribers.
The Reformer is also a free website with a free 5-days-a-week newsletter. But where Axios goes brief, the Reformer often goes long, striving to probe policy and break news in the Minnesota political scene, via full-time newsroom of four journalists, as well as freelancers and national coverage via its umbrella organization, States Newsroom.
The operation is funded by local and national donation and grants. Much of the funding comes from left-leaning donors, but since it launched here in January 2020, the Reformer has established itself as a newsroom that will go after stories that are damaging to Democrats, such as a recent exclusive about a former Senate DFL aide’s allegation of sexual harassment by a senior DFL staffer.
“We don’t pull punches,” said Reformer editor J. Patrick Coolican, who, like Van Oot, left the Star-Tribune’s political team.
TIER-BASED, NOT AD-BASED REVENUE MODEL
Racket’s four editors — former City Pages arts and events editor Jessica Armbruster, former web editor Jay Boller and former music editor Keith Harris — have self-funded Racket to a large degree, with the hope that readers will opt to pay $5 per month or $50 per year, $10/$100, or $999 annually for member benefits that get them beyond the paywall.
The middle tier includes a bonus newsletter, discounts on merchandise and commenting on news stories — a bar set high enough that it will hopefully weed out the trolls. “Any sort of hateful speech will not be tolerated,” Cassel said.
The Walker Art Center is the opening week sponsor, but ads will be relatively discreet and limited, what some might call a heavy gamble in an era when even media giants have embraced pop-up ads and banners.
Cassel said two newsletters will be emailed to readers free of charge and be events focused, “Event Horizon” and “The Freeloader,” the latter being a round-up of free events around the Twin Cities.
So where is Racket located? All four editors live in Minneapolis, but beyond that, the answer is simple: The internet.
“In true COVID fashion, we’re working from home,” Cassel said. “Someone told us there’s this 70/30 split, where in traditional journalism, 70 percent of the costs are your office space, your advertising team, the print product itself, and 30 percent goes to the writers. This kind of inverts that. We’re saying 70 percent goes to the writers.”
That’s one of several selling points the editors hope will convince readers to open their wallets for yet another Twin Cities media outlet.
“It’s a very personal relationship when you are asking people for their money and giving them journalism in return,” Cassel said.
