Independent local news website Greater Long Island this week celebrates ten years as one of the most successful owner-operated independent local news websites in the US.
The site covers the densely populated suburban communities to the east of New York City. Here founder Michael White answers Press Gazette’s questions about how he is making local news pay in a tough economic climate for publishers.
Who owns the site?
I am the founder and majority owner of Greater Long Island Media Group, Inc. My partner, Nick Esposito, is a minority owner (both pictured above). This is the only news website we own.
How are you making local news pay?
We make money through sponsored content packages, which includes writing, photography and distribution, all recurring revenue. We also work with companies that sponsor our coverage geographically (Greater Patchogue content, Greater Bay Shore, etc.) We also make very good money on programmatic ads through Raptive, and from featured/sponsored event listings.
Our newsletter has also been growing in leaps and bounds and we expect this to be a major revenue driver in 2026 and beyond. Nearly 16,000 subscribers and a 40% open rate.
How many staff do you have and what do they do?
Myself and Nick Esposito are the only full timers. We each produce editorial content, with Nick taking the lead on managing all social media. My wife, Satin Widrow, is a part-time employee. Formerly of ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut, she does clerical, produces content and works on multimedia packages for social media (photos, reels, etc.)
I work on producing and managing distribution of our paid content as well. And lots of invoicing.
Our main editorial freelance, Brian Harmon, former Daily News assistant managing editor, works on a Raptive [programmatic advertising] revenue split. He’s a massive part of our traffic.
Our other freelances, photographers, videographers and writers, have worked at some very big newsrooms in the US and New York City. This is a very talented group!
We have one sales director, Nick Marchand, who manages leads, and these absolutely pour in.
The trick here is screening potential supporters for the right fit.
How much money do you make?
This year we’re approaching $700,000 in annual revenues. On the question of profit, we take modest salaries and every bit of extra money we make, we put right back into the website and into video projects.
We run this like a non-profit in that regard. It’s always about reinvesting and getting bigger and better, with the long-term goal of being the top news source for Long Islanders.
What’s your editorial focus?
Our primary editorial focus is on Long Island’s downtowns, but not every community has a downtown, so we try to focus on restaurants and retail, transit, real estate, the environment, local sports and entertainment, and some breaking news. We don’t have the staff to go all-in on breaking news, but if it’s big enough, we’ll cover.
We get a lot of our news from town and village board meetings, and these meetings now being streamed makes life easier for us. We do not cover politics or local political races because A: It’s bad for business with our audience and B: We don’t have the resources to cover all the local races. From school boards, to the state assembly, we’d be talking about hundreds of political races each year. Long Islanders can look elsewhere for that stuff, such as Newsday and the local weeklies.
Why do you do it?
Long Island is a provincial area. It’s 140 miles of suburban sprawl east of New York City. We want to be a constructive media force for the regions. In this way, from the beginning, I set out to connect these somewhat insular communities by telling stories from within, interesting stories of entrepreneurship, ingenuity and people doing some pretty wild and cool things. We then seek to distribute those stories across communities and what happens is people start to better understand one another.
When you step away from a focus on crime and politics you’re left with some pretty great and interesting stuff. That said, we’ve come to cover more and more crime when it’s either really interesting or has a public service element to it. For instance, these car takeovers have been plaguing residents in Suffolk County. We’re all-in on that whenever they make a bust. Drugs are a problem, so we also like to highlight drug busts, which I think helps to deter.
What have been some of your biggest/best stories?
- Coyotes are spreading across Long Island; here’s what to expect
- Greater Long Island’s complete coverage of the East End wildfires
- LI ice cream shop makes it to the Kentucky Derby — on jockey’s clothes
- Botched circumcision leaves Long Island infant fighting to live, dad says
- Retro-futuristic coffee shop brings ‘Jetsons’ vibe to Long Island.
But we also do lots of video.
Blind swimmer
Ice boats
Hot dogs
How is business looking this year?
Business is absolutely booming. Our revenues are up 35% over last year, and in 2024 we were about 35% over the prior year. The leads from businesses come in almost every day, via email inquiries and social DM’s, etc.
What tips can you share on how to make journalism pay in the digital age?
Build up your Instagram presence as best you can. Nearly all of our sales leads are coming through Instagram and everybody wants to see themselves on Instagram. If you’re not putting time and resources into Instagram, it’s at your own peril.
You can build up your TikTok audiences concurrently as well, using the same assets.
But never lose focus of that newsletter. You’re reporting this stuff, make sure you build up that newsletter over time, no matter how slow and daunting this could be.
Social trends come and go, but if you build up a strong newsletter following over the course of years you’ll always have an audience at your fingertips.
Seek out the right supporters for advertising through your news organisation.
It takes time, but you want to connect with businesses that see value in what you’re doing, editorially, and want to be a part of it all. These will be your most steadfast supporters. If a businesses’s sole focus is on leads and ROI, so to speak, they won’t be around for long. This isn’t Angie’s List [the classified advertising website] this is journalism first and foremost.
And most importantly, know your audience. Listen to your audience. Watch how they react and behave around your content and social media. And if they are responding, serve up more of it. Give that audience what they want, not what you want or feel they need, and they will live and die with you and all mistakes will be forgiven.
Sales aside, the audience is what keeps you in business in the long run; doing right by them is rule number 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.
[If you are an independent publisher with a success story to share (anywhere in the world) the Press Gazette editorial team would love to hear from you. Contact: pged@pressgazette.co.uk]Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
