A typical independent news site would start its annual subscriber appeal noting that its reporting this year has been cited by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, ABC News, Forbes, CNBC, The Hill, Semafor, Insider, The Independent, Wired, Gizmodo, and Fortune Magazine. Any other small media organization like ours would happily note that our nonpartisan reporting crosses the political spectrum and resulted in being picked up by places like HuffPost and The Daily Wire. They might say that they led news coverage in local newspapers, small and large, from California to Florida.
The funding appeal may even say our media organization’s lawyers went to federal court and successfully fought to unseal a case that has massive ramifications for how law enforcement investigations happen around the country.
We could say all those things. In fact, we just did, in our own typically quirky way. And it is all true. But we’re not a usual news site. We never have been. We’ve always aimed to be both informative and entertaining. So let’s try a different approach.
To be clear, this piece is an explicit call for you to become a paid subscriber. If you’ve spent the last year enjoying what we’ve produced and want us to continue, you can become a paid subscriber here. If you’d like to make a one-time donation, we have a Tip Jar here.
If you’d like a recap of our impact, what we did right and what we failed at, the current status of our news site, and why we think you should consider investing in our work with a paid subscription, we humbly offer that below.
We started this site more than three years ago with a simple goal: to be a reporting watchdog on U.S. courts proceedings.
On the eve of our fourth anniversary, we’ve proven time and time again that we are that watchdog. Bringing to light stories that would never have been reported without us.
Now, we need your help to continue it.
Current status.
At our two-year anniversary, we had 8,705 free subscribers and 336 paid subscribers. This month, on our three-year anniversary, we have 10,228 free subscribers and 514 paid subscribers. We published nearly a hundred reporting pieces, a significant rise from the previous years. We had a nearly 40% jump in the number of views this year from last year.
We’ve consistently broken news through our reporting. That has resulted in dozens of much larger and better-resourced news organizations playing catch-up. But we still live in a news and internet environment where clicks are more important than credit. We try our best from time to time to shame the internet into recognizing where they got the original reporting that got them their clicks. But even when that doesn’t work, we still report the news – credit be damned.
Our most opened piece was a random Friday court records roundup with a lede about Benson Boone. We highly doubt Benny fans pushed us over the finish line – mostly because we have persistent concerns about the fanbase’s level of literacy. It was more likely that a lot of you were very excited about our inadvertently clickbait headline, which appeared to apologized in advance for the piece. The next most opened story was about a man accused of threatening to kill prosecutors. Thus proving the old adage in the media that the only thing that drives web traffic is cooking recipes, impossible word puzzles, and stories that mention Jeffrey Epstein.
By leaps and bounds, the piece that sparked the most reader emails was our personal reflection (“They Were Praying”) on the tragic murders of children in Minnesota. We were way out of our comfort zone writing a piece that weaved our faith with our expertise in extremism research, we were both surprised and grateful by the reaction. As we think of those tiny victims, we hope we never have to write a piece like that again in the future.
As a general rule, we’re clocking a more than 63% email open rate for every one of our stories. We’re told that’s damn near unheard of for a news site. Our readers are both loyal and highly engaged. They come from all walks of life, from major TV anchors to teachers in Iowa. We have one billionaire reader who reads us religiously but still clings to a free subscription and one retiree who felt bad about not being about to swing a paid subscription but offered to cook us a meal anytime we were in Wisconsin. We appreciate them both, but we intend to have dinner with only one of them. The other one should consider selling a yacht or two and then sign up for 9-dollars a month.
Our readers also come from all political persuasions. We have hard-core MAGA subscribers who believe the President can do no wrong and folks that cried tears of joy when Mayor-elect Mamdani won in November. We endeavor to report the news in a way that brings them all together to the central tenets of Court Watch’s style of journalism: Non-partisan. Informative. Engaging. And above all else, fact-based. We have strong opinions on politics, we pray you never see them in our reporting.
We launched a new weekly feature, led by our reporting fellow Peter Beck. The series, affectionately called The Rabbit Hole, dives deep into one court case each week to explore the larger ramifications. Those stories include a look into a purported Israeli mob boss and how Roblox became a bit of a cesspool of sadness. Because The Rabbit Hole requires a level of reporting that is more than a quick one-line bullet, we made the decision to move it behind a paywall starting in December. We’re quite proud of the series and have big plans for its growth. We hope our subscribers got a sense of its value during this month, when it was available for free, and will consider becoming a paid subscriber to keep it going.
Costs.
The first two years of Court Watch were defined by running a money-losing yet somehow news-making hobby. By the third year, with our move to a new hosting platform (shoutout to the good folks at beehiiv), we were on the cusp of breaking even. Then the costs of being a news-making no longer just a hobby site reporting hit us squarely in the face. As has been true for the last 1,095 days, we have not taken a salary or stipend, but even with our free labor, the costs grew.
Last year, we spent $6,105.30 in PACER fees. This year, we’ve spent $11,438.10. There’s a lot of talk about inflation rising the costs of things everywhere. We experienced an inflation in lawsuits this year. The judiciary is having a banner year. On any given day, we’re tracking hundreds of lawsuits. Each motion, court order, and new lawsuit means new fees. In addition, because we see it as a public service, we’re one of the last places on the internet that still tracks every lawsuit filed against the new Administration's executive action. Just the links to the court records, no commentary, so folks from all political stripes can read the primary source documents themselves and form their own opinions.
This year, we spent thousands of dollars paying freelance reporters and one very good reporting fellow to do what good freelance reporters and one very good reporting fellow do: report the news.
We spent hundreds of dollars to hire a local lawyer to file our pro-bono media lawyer’s motion, which in turn compelled a federal judge to unseal a docket. We asked a few major news organizations if they wanted to join our brief and share the costs of that. They didn’t see that as a good business decision. We don’t see shining a light on an investigative tool that tracks thousands of innocent people in search of a couple of criminals as one of those things you consider as a business decision either way. Though in fairness, upon reflection of our bank account, it may have been a bad business decision. But we have no doubt it was a very good reporting decision. Mostly because if we didn’t do it, no one else would.
It could be our Hodor savior complex, but we truly believe more and more there is less and less good nonpartisan shoeleather journalism in this country. We endeavor to hold the line, even if we stand alone.
There were other expenses, including paying quarterly taxes, credit card processing fees, web hosting, and the like. Some of those expenses were quite big, others small, but they all add up to a burn rate that is not keeping pace with our paid subscriber count.
A significant failure this year has been our inability to bring in advertising sponsorship to Court Watch. It’s an area we have little to no experience with, but if we’re able to figure it out, it would have dramatic effects on our news organization’s bottom line and help diversify our funding. We also think given the range of stories we break and the type of subscribers we have, it should be an easy sell for advertisers. We’re working on it, but if you're a whiz in selling ad spots, drop us a note.
The Hard Pitch.
Our reporting friends who are looking at this funding appeal will likely have the same feedback: You’re burying the lede. So here it is – We need to get to 250 more total paid subscribers to continue to report the news without losing money.
(If you find yourself a person of means and you would like to do more than a yearly or monthly subscription, you can make a one-time donation of your choosing here. We appreciate every one of our donors from those who have given as little as five dollars to others committing as much as $2,500.)
Every best practice paid subscription model will tell you that if you’re going to ask for a 50 percent jump in existing paid subscribers, you need to do the following:
Make the appeal repeatedly at the top of the email. It appears we largely failed in that regard, but we trust our readers to actually read.
Make the appeal a life and death choice. A lot of folks can’t make their rent right now. We think our reporting is important, impactful, and unique, but in the context of losing a roof over your head, we chose perspective.
Make the appeal overtly political. There are plenty of very good sites that cover politics in a partisan lens much better than we ever would. We’re the last of a dying breed of old-school journalists, and we’re not going that route even if it means we have to shut down.
Create an interactive that will give updates on how close we are to meeting the subscriber goal. Alas, because we’re reporters, not ISIS. Graphic design is not our passion. Please simply imagine a bar graph inching closer to 100% every time you check.
Say you’ll hire a new reporter if you hit the goal. We like that model, but we’re still not taking a salary on this site, so we’re not there yet. However, we’ve committed with the Rabbit Hole series to increase the compensation to our reporting fellow, Peter Beck, who is now leading that Sunday feature. If we hit our subscriber mark, we intend to increase that compensation even more.
Exactly what we’ve done for the last three years. (We will break news. We will report stories before everyone else, many times, stories that wouldn’t have ever been reported without us.)
We admit, it may be a straightforward statement to read (‘we want to keep doing what we’ve done for the last three years’) in a sea of dramatic subscriber appeals you’ve undoubtedly received from other newsletters. For most people, this wouldn’t make you take out your wallet and pay 9 dollars a month.
But you, our readers, are not most people.
You’re curious, inquisitive, and appreciate reading news stories you can’t get anywhere else in a way no one else tells it. You appreciate reporters who spend nights and weekends trying to uncover absolute truths in a post-truth world. That’s it. That’s the pitch.
If it doesn’t move the subscriber needle, so be it. But we have faith that it will. Because we have faith in you. We’re not promising the subscriber moon. We have already launched, landed, and walked on the moon for the last three years. We have planted the Court Watch flag and watched as every other news organization tried to catch up in our space race.
So, as we embark on our fourth year of publication, please help us continue to do what we’ve always done.