Here’s an idea to steal and adapt: How to create a regional keepsake that drives revenue toward your newsroom.
I was born in Sacramento, but left as I entered college and started my first job in news in Texas. When I returned in 2017, the food world’s embrace of locally-sourced ingredients and celebration of diverse cuisines, combined with the Bay Area’s astronomical cost of living, had turned what was once a sleepy government town into a burgeoning dining destination. I became The Sacramento Bee’s food and drink reporter in 2018 and spent the next five years closely watching as the culinary scene continued to mature, attracting Michelin stars and James Beard Award nominations. Meanwhile, my reporting drove more than 1,000 new subscribers to The Bee as local readers showed their appetite for day-in, day-out reporting on the city’s new cultural heartbeat. Ambitious projects such as a review-based list of the region’s top 50 restaurants proved especially fruitful.
