Florida
sees digital subscription success with police coverage
If
you haven’t perused SouthCentralFloridaLife.com in a while. You should. The
digital daily newspaper site is filled with unique crime and courts coverage.
While
the entire Florida newsroom contributes to crime stories, journalist Cathy
Womble covers most first responder news. It’s headlines like, “Okeechobee man arrested after
jumping in front of moving ambulance., or Okeechobee man arrested after
allegedly stealing camera, threatening law enforcement. that
attracts readership and digital subscriptions.
One particular story: https://www.southcentralfloridalife.com/stories/deputy-cleared-of-wrong-doing-at-high-school,23409?
that was locked as a Subscriber Exclusive generated more than 50 digital
subscriptions in 24 hours.
Cathy admits her success is from digging into the daily arrest
reports that she receives.
“They only send a fact sheet with basics facts,” Womble explained.
“If it looks interesting, I either ask them for a narrative or go to the county
clerk’s website to get it.”
She added often times the sheriff redacts half of the report
where she needs to follow up with more questions, and the clerk’s site is often
a couple days behind, but with little redaction.
She makes sure to follow up on the initial reports after folks are arrested due
to readers’ requests. She keeps watch on the updates – and developing a
relationship with the courts helped make her job easier.
“They
started sending emails listing names of people going to court in the next
couple days and what they were going for,” Womble stated on a Teams chat.
“If it says change of plea or sentencing or trial, I put the name on my list.
Then I go back to the clerk’s website and look the person up. If their case is
closed, I put them in my “in the courts” column. That’s just the basics, their
name, their sentence, their charges, etc.
“If
it looks interesting, I don’t put it in the column. Instead, I write a story
using information from the arrest.”
She
noted on occasion if the sheriff’s office won’t cooperate, you could go to the
Clerk’s website and search cases by date rather than name.
SouthCentralFloridaLife.com
launched its digital paywall in April 2021. To date, there are 132 annual
subscribers and 296 current month-to-month. The current population of Okeechobee, Fla., is 5,969 based on projections of the latest US Census estimates.
The
quick hit stories such as “Deputy cleared of wrong-doing,” generated immediate
injections into the digital subscriptions then canceled.
The
new one-day pass for $5 allows readers to buy the story they want to read
without having recurring payments. This also saves the circulation team time of
having to cancel the monthly subscription for those who don’t prefer recurring
payments.
Cathy
can be reached at cwomble@iniusa.org.
