Local media can do more than tell us what went wrong.
At The Coastal Buzz, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what local media should look like today.
Because somewhere along the way, a lot of media became dominated by what’s wrong.
More outrage.
More division.
More noise.
Meanwhile, businesses are opening. People are building things. Students are accomplishing incredible things. Nonprofits are changing lives. Careers are beginning. Communities are growing. Entrepreneurs are taking chances. People are quietly doing work that matters.
Those stories are real, too.
And we believe they deserve to be told.
That’s why we’re building The Coastal Buzz differently.
What We’re Building
The Coastal Buzz exists to spotlight the People, Places & Possibilities shaping our region.
We want to help you discover:
- what’s opening
- what’s growing
- who’s making a difference
- where opportunities exist
- what businesses are building
- what nonprofits are accomplishing
- what young people are achieving
- and what positive things are happening throughout our communities
But we don’t want to simply tell you what happened.
We want to help you understand why it matters.
Who is behind it?
Who could it help?
What opportunity could it create?
What does it mean for the community?
What happens next?
That’s the kind of local media we want The Coastal Buzz to become.
We Call It Possibility Journalism
Possibility journalism does not mean pretending problems don’t exist.
It doesn’t mean everything has to be perfect.
And it certainly doesn’t mean fake positivity.
It means intentionally choosing where we focus our journalistic energy.
Traditional local media already does an important job covering crime, politics, controversy and many of the difficult issues facing our communities.
We’re choosing a different lane.
We look for:
- progress
- opportunity
- growth
- entrepreneurship
- community impact
- interesting people
- new ideas
- local resources
- human stories
- and possibilities
Instead of asking only:
“What happened?”
We also ask:
“What does this mean for the people who live here?”
People Matter to Us
Businesses, buildings and communities change.
Human stories endure.
That’s why we want The Coastal Buzz to become more than a collection of announcements.
Behind a new restaurant is someone who took a risk.
Behind a nonprofit is often someone who saw a need.
Behind a growing company are people building careers.
Behind an accomplishment is usually a story nobody sees.
Behind many of the places we pass every day are people worth knowing.
We want to tell those stories.
Positive Doesn’t Mean Promotional
This distinction matters to us.
Being a positive publication does not mean everything submitted to The Coastal Buzz automatically gets published.
Businesses, organizations, PR firms, nonprofits and community members regularly send us story ideas, announcements and press releases.
We appreciate them.
But The Coastal Buzz decides what we publish.
We consider whether something is relevant to our readers, fits our mission and adds value to the publication.
A press release being sent to us does not guarantee coverage.
A business being a Buzz Partner does not guarantee that every announcement it sends us will be published.
Our editorial decisions remain our own.
Our Promise About Paid Content
This one is simple:
If someone paid us specifically for a feature, we will tell you.
The Coastal Buzz works with local businesses through our Buzz Partner program. Those partnerships help financially support the work we’re building and allow us to tell deeper stories about participating businesses and the people behind them.
When a story was created specifically as part of that paid partnership, it will be clearly identified as a:
Buzz Partner Feature
We don’t want readers guessing.
We don’t want advertising disguised as independent editorial coverage.
And we don’t believe transparency makes a paid feature less valuable.
We believe it makes The Coastal Buzz more trustworthy.
A Buzz Partner Can Still Make News
There’s another distinction that’s equally important.
A business doesn’t stop being newsworthy simply because it becomes a Buzz Partner.
A Buzz Partner might:
- open another location
- expand
- create jobs
- launch a community initiative
- host an event
- support a nonprofit
- introduce something significant
- reach an important milestone
Their PR firm might also send us news or announcements just as it does for businesses that aren’t Buzz Partners.
If we independently decide that information deserves coverage and no payment was made for that particular story, it is editorial coverage.
It will not be labeled a Buzz Partner Feature simply because the business happens to be one of our partners.
The same editorial standard applies:
Is this something our audience should know about?
If the answer is yes, we may cover it.
If the answer is no, being a Buzz Partner doesn’t change that decision.
The Difference Is Important
Our philosophy can be summed up pretty simply:
Paid for the feature? We’ll tell you.
Earned editorial coverage? We’ll treat it as editorial coverage.
A business can purchase visibility through clearly identified opportunities with The Coastal Buzz.
It cannot purchase our editorial judgment.
That’s a line we intend to protect.
What We Won’t Do
As The Coastal Buzz grows, there will be more opportunities to make money.
Some we’ll pursue.
Some we won’t.
We will not knowingly build our business around:
- hidden paid promotion
- fake reviews
- purchased editorial opinions presented as independent recommendations
- misleading headlines
- manufactured controversy
- rumors presented as facts
- fake engagement
- fabricated interviews or quotes
- sacrificing credibility simply because something could generate traffic or revenue
There are plenty of ways to build a successful media company without misleading the people who trust it.
That’s the company we intend to build.
Our Commitment
We want The Coastal Buzz to:
- celebrate local wins
- tell the stories of local businesses and entrepreneurs
- amplify meaningful nonprofit work
- highlight careers and opportunities
- recognize young people doing interesting things
- introduce you to people worth knowing
- help you discover what’s opening and growing
- connect people with useful local information
- preserve stories from our community
- give people more reasons to feel connected to where they live
We won’t always get everything perfect.
But we can always be clear about what we’re trying to build.
The Standard
Before we publish something, there’s a simple question behind what we do:
Does this help The Coastal Buzz become more useful, more trusted, more discoverable, more connected or more valuable to the community without compromising who we are?
If it doesn’t, we should question why we’re doing it.
Because traffic matters.
Revenue matters.
Growth matters.
But trust matters more.
The Goal
One day, we want people around our region to say:
“I made it into The Buzz.”
Not because we’re trying to become gatekeepers.
Because being featured means something.
It means there was a story worth telling.
A business worth discovering.
A person worth meeting.
An accomplishment worth recognizing.
An opportunity worth sharing.
Something happening in our community that deserved a little more attention.
That’s the kind of local media company we’re building.
And our promise is that as The Coastal Buzz grows, we won’t forget why we started.
People. Places. Possibilities.
Want to better understand our editorial coverage, contributed content and Buzz Partner program?
Read: How The Coastal Buzz Works