Publisher's Note: One Month In

First, a picture really is worth a thousand words. Over the past few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to work with some exceptionally talented photographers, like Jonathan Boncek, Anna Routh Barzin, and Rémy Thurston, and their images have given the Dispatch’s early stories an extra dose of snap and pizzazz.

It’s tempting as a publisher to save a few bucks and use stock photos or images swiped from social media to illustrate stories. But the early results have convinced me to double down and commission custom photography whenever we can, especially to accompany restaurant reviews and longer form features.

Second, there are a lot of exciting things going on in the dining world in the Carolinas, and a lot of very passionate people writing about them. When I was up in Chapel Hill visiting Osteria Georgi for this week’s restaurant review, I invited one of the Dispatch’s Triangle contributors, Matt Lardie, to join me for dinner. In addition to meeting Matt in person for the first time and getting to know him better, it was a delight to geek out over the food scene in the Carolinas.

I left the restaurant that night will a belly full of good pasta and a head buzzing with ideas for new stories and features—and for special events and bonus content for subscribers, too. The South is not a monolith when it comes to food, and neither are the Carolinas. Each city and subregion in the two states has a very different character to its dining scene, and we’ll be exploring more of those intriguing variations and differences in the weeks to come. I’m excited to see what each of the Dispatch’s contributors turn up in their next pieces.

The third and final observation is less rosy, for it’s about Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Social media has long been a terrible thicket, and it’s clear that with each passing year things are only getting worse. The various platforms long ago introduced algorithms to filter and sort the posts that each user sees. Over time those algorithms have been relentlessly calibrated to show only the posts mostly likely to drive “engagement.” In practice, that usually means posts that are entertaining but superficial or, even worse, ones that stir up powerful emotions like outrage and aggrievement.

A publisher’s challenge used to be getting potential readers who saw their posts to actually click through and read the story. Now getting someone to even see your post at all is the issue, for the algorithms tend to bury all but the most “engaging” content.

It’s tempting to play the game and spend hours analyzing and crafting social media messages to try to cut through the thicket, but each hour spent on social media is an hour not spent on the actual stories that you want people to read. Even worse, it’s easy to slide into the swamp and start adjusting the actual content of your publication to try to game the system. The inevitable result? Endless top 10 lists and outrage-inducing hot takes (“People who put sugar in pimento cheese are sociopaths: fight me!”)

Fortunately, we are not in a rush. The goal of The Southeastern Dispatch is to create a home for thoughtful, well-crafted writing about dining in the Carolinas and to forge strong relationships with loyal readers. That’s why we’ve opted to go with a subscription model first and foremost and not an advertising-driven model in which clicks and unique visits are all that matters.

And that brings me back around to you, our early subscribers. Thanks again for supporting us right out of the gate, and please help spread the word so that other readers like you can find us, too. (We have a few suggestions on how do that later in the newsletter.)

Until next time, happy eating!

Robert

Programming note: Going forward, the subscriber-only Dispatch Plus newsletter will post on Tuesday mornings. We were a bit delayed this week while we put a final coat of paint on the newsletter system. Our other newsletter, The Weekly Dispatch, which is free to all comers, will post each Thursday.