E59: Member Spotlight with Baltimore Fishbowl

Dive into the fascinating journey of Baltimore Fishbowl, an online news site dedicated to capturing the essence of Baltimore's vibrant community. Join host Rebecca Snyder as she sits down with Suzy Dunn, the founder of Baltimore Fishbowl, to uncover the evolution of this unique platform over the past decade. From untold stories to offbeat humor, discover how Fishbowl has become a beloved voice in Baltimore's media landscape.

Transcript

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Welcome. I'm here with Susan G Dunn, the founder of Baltimore Fish Bowl, which is an online news site dedicated to Baltimore. So welcome to the program, Suzy. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. So for listeners who don't really, who aren't up on the hottest house of the week and some of the fun and inventive coverage that the fishbowl offers, tell us about the fishbowl. So I founded the Fishbowl in 2011. And one of the reasons I wanted to start it was because I've lived here for almost 40 years, raised four children here and was a journalist and a freelance writer. And I would hear stories out and about from friends, from neighbors, carpool line at parties that weren't being covered in the mainstream press. And so I wanted to tell those sort of untold, quirky stories, but I didn't really want to be too self -serious. I mean, I like humor and I like irreverence. And so the idea was to tell some of the serious stories, but tell some of the, as I call them, silly stories too. So some fun, funny stories. I love humor. In fact, the name kind of has humor in it, right? Baltimore Fish Bowl. That's supposed to give you that idea that everyone knows about everyone else's life, which is how I really felt. I'm from Los Angeles and in Los Angeles, you can meet someone and never see them again for the rest of your life. But involved, hey, there's the guy that I met. You know, that's the guy from my daughter's class over at Eddie's or, you know, drive. It just, you run into people. It's this much smaller world and it felt like a fishbowl to me. And I really loved it when I first got here because I thought it was fun to be able to, to have these connections. So many connections, many different levels, but my husband, I'm like, it can be a lot sometimes, but I love it. Right. Right. ready when you go out in the world sometimes. And so that was the idea behind it was to tell some of those quirkier, interesting, untold stories that I was hearing in my life in Baltimore. So with that as sort of the jumping off point, it's now been, oh, math, not my strong suit, almost 15 years. we're coming up on 13 years and may it'll be 13 years. Can you believe that? that is like that's an arc. And the fishbowl has been I mean, I think you have a really interesting sense of place and identity. So how how's that 13 years worked out? Would you feel like you've been able to stay to that vision? Or how have you evolved? So we've evolved, for sure we've evolved. So when we first started, my partner at the time was my writing partner, who's now the, I guess she's the director of the University of Baltimore, come on, creative writing program, Betsy Lloyd. And so we had written, we'd written a screenplay together and we'd written, we'd worked on a magazine that I also founded long ago called Paper Doll Together. And so she, started this and her, our idea together was that there are so many talented creative writers in town and we really wanted to give them a platform. And so we really focused on creative nine fiction and a lot of creative writing. But what we found over the years was that news really drove traffic and you know, not that we're looking for clickbait, but we do want people to come to our site. And so anything we wrote about a breaking story, people would come. And so we really had to have the mix of more, more news, just more straight news, and a little bit less of that creative writing, although we got to be known for some of the creative writing. And one of our star columnists, Marion Winnick, is also a professor at University of Baltimore. And to this day, her column is one of the most popular features that we have on the site. So we still have a place for creative nonfiction and creative writing, but we do focus more on news. So I want to ask actually for those who don't know, what does Marianne write about? So Marianne Winnick's column is called Bohemian Rhapsody. And when she started it in 2011, the idea was living and loving in Baltimore in your 50s. So she had moved here for a marriage. The marriage had broken up, but she stayed. And it was just about her life here and sort of the humor, the challenges, the experiences that she's had. She actually has a really popular column that posted yesterday. that is about her journey with Ozempic and what that's been like. And it's getting a lot of reads because people are curious about that. And she's very honest, open, and very candid about her experiences, which is also always a good read. But she's written 11 books and she's been on NPR. She's a personality. So she has quite a following. Yeah, she's the real deal. She has quite a following. But. at the Baltimore Fish Bowl, which is great. That's right. Let's do some freelancing for the for Baltimore magazine sometimes with some of the other publications around town, which is great. I want my readers, my writers to be able to write as much as possible and do, you know, I there are some publications that won't let you write for other places, but we're happy. I mean, listen, I'd love to to to see writers getting more work. But with the news, I say we report news and we do, but we, you know, we have a very narrow, a very shallow bench. We don't have, we have one reporter and one editor and then everyone else is freelance and we, you know, have an intern not every semester, just the semesters that we can offer a stipend. And so some semesters we have an intern and some semesters we do not, but right now we have an intern, we have one reporter and one editor and you know, it's hard to do the breaking news because we can't have reporters out on the street. the way some of the other publications in town can. And, you know, it's a very small team. But, you know, we, I'm so proud of our team because they work so hard and they do such a good job. And we have, I'm really proud of our audience. We have a great audience and they're able to pull it off with that small team. It's amazing. They're great. and I think when you are looking at sort of what's the achievable news, like that sort of clarity on who you are and what you bring to the table is so important. So, you know, and sort of that idea of you've got this long form or sort of creative nonfiction bent, but you also are covering news. I mean, like they have to exist together on the same site. So. some of the news that we cover is some more of the cultural news, because one of the things that's important to me for a local news website is to really show the texture and the sort of the fabric of the community. Like if we were just reporting headlines, the crime, and we'd really don't touch crime just because so many other publications do it and can do it much better than we can do it. So we don't really cover that. But if we were just to cover. City Hall and what's going on on the various county councils. It would get to some of what Baltimore's all about, but not to the quirky, interesting, funny, different personalities and projects and restaurants and events and things that are going on that make you really feel what this community's all about. And it's not just about. I hate to be a broken writer, but it's not just about the wire. Even though that's a real part of this city, it's multidimensional, right? It's just like any city. I mean, it's like, I'm from Los Angeles. It would be like saying Hollywood is all that LA is all about. And you know, it's not, it's a lot about much more than that. Just in Baltimore is the same way. There's a lot more to it than just what has been portrayed in the world as we all know as residents here. And you know, think Baltimore is such a city of neighborhoods. And so, and I think the scene or the events going on in different parts of the city, like there's a real, there is a local flavor there. You know, like what's happening in Laraville is different than what's happening in Rowland Park or in Hamden or whatnot. And so do you kind of pop around to what you find most interesting? Like I'm really interested in how you. deploy and we were talking before we started to record about kind of your adjusted role that you're still really involved, but you're trying to sort of take a higher level view. Like how do you manage, how do you manage that kind of staff and still get done what you want to get done? So can I just tell you, so we started very focused on North Baltimore, but as we, you know, we've been around for 13 years. So as we grew and we're around for some time, we saw that we had more audience in places like, you know, in Howard County and in Canesville and further out in Baltimore County. And I have always been really pleased that we cover the county more than some of the other publications in this town do. And so that was always a big part of our audience. But I gave reporters early on a really broad instruction, which was, if you find it of interest, our audience will find it of interest. Write things that are of interest. And something of interest can be in Pigtown or it can be in Lutherville. And something of interest can be in Columbia or it can be in Laurel. So we're very broad. really what's really important for us is to have the right new sense and to understand our audience because our audience used to be very centered in North Baltimore and it's still a good part of it because that's where we kind of started our reportage. But as we've been around for some time, our audience really does run the gamut. It really goes anywhere all the way from Columbia all the way to the Baltimore County line. And so we don't discount a story. It's really has to be a story. That's the point. It's more the story, not the area that interests us as much as. idea that you just go where your interests lie. And so, I mean, it just feels like a really sort of fertile place for a reporter to go and say, I'm going to cover the stories that are important, that are interesting, and not feel boxed in by, you know, like, oh, this is my beat, or we only do this type of coverage. And I mean, your coverage is always super interesting. And actually, I want to ask you just, for my own interest, how do you decide those cool houses that you put up? Like, isn't it? know, that's... Go ahead. What? I feel like that must be one of your most popular... It's not? one. No, no, no, no. I wasn't shaking. No, I'm sorry. I was just shaking my head at my disbelief. From day one, it has been so popular. And one of the things that I've always said, I think our real estate porn is better than anywhere else because we choose writers who are not just good writers, but they have a very good eye because some institutions will give someone that beat and they're a very good writer and they can cover the house well, but you have to have that eye. You have to see the detail. I mean, one of the things that was so remarkable to me when I moved here from Los Angeles was the housing inventory. The houses are beautiful and there's, they're just, there are things we could never afford if you live in Los Angeles, I'll tell you that. And I just thought we need to show that side of this city because I don't think people understand how rich and how historic and how beautiful the housing inventory is. And so when I looked for a writer to do that, do that was a freelancer. The first writer was Cynthia McIntyre, who had written for Baltimore Magazine a little bit and had, I knew her personally, so I knew she had a good sense, just sort of a good aesthetic. And so she did a great job. And then that was passed off to Meg Fielding, who is who is on the board of the local Baltimore Architecture Foundation. So she's very she has a great eye too, and also a great writer. So it's just It's really, it's equally about the eyes. It is about the writing. But if you can get both with, we are lucky enough to have, then you've really got a winning formula. So it has been very, very popular. It's so funny because, you know, we will write stories, important, intelligent stories. And yet the hot house will be the number one story on the site. Cause people love it. People love, people love house porn. So I get it. I really like that feature. It is a fun feature. So then what do you and as a small independent, you life is not easy for a small independent, anything really, but certainly not a news media entity. So what what kind of keeps you going? I mean, there's probably easier ways to make a living in one's life. But what keeps you coming back, especially as you as you're heading into, you know, you're you're starting that second decade and it's a lot. So what's what's going on? I will tell you, you know, I think it was, well, we all know this. If you're in this industry, you're not in it to get rich, right? We're all in it for the stories. The stories are, you know, it's really, it's a fun business. And I remember when I started Fishbowl, a pal, it was actually my husband's college roommate and we're also very good friends. And he was the first investor. And he said to me, you know, what you're doing, If you ever want to raise more money, you don't always, you don't have to worry about the investment because people aren't expecting media products to make a lot of money. And he certainly hasn't expected it and hasn't had that happen. But he said, but it's a fun business. It's interesting. And that's what keeps you going. I mean, it's it beats, you know, making diddlywinks, right? It's it's interesting. It's a learning story. It's the best job in the world, really, because you're constantly learning about new and interesting things on the horizon. and learning about the world that you live in. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that. So it does, the stories are what keep me going, but it is hard, especially in this media landscape. And we've seen, since we started, you know, City Paper's gone, The Urbanite is gone. I'm trying to think, Who, What, Where? What was it? What magazine? Or Where magazine? Where magazine? And there's just so many publications, local publications that, have folded since we started and I'm just so proud that we're still standing and honestly we are an advertising model and our sales are great. I mean part of it is when you're around for a while people then come to you. It was hard in the beginning especially when there was no name recognition but we hung in there. like you guys have such a sense of identity and that helps because if you could sort of characterize who is your audience, who is your typical reader? Right, so I find that in most publications, the audience really reflects the publisher and the writers. And so, you know, in the beginning, it was like what I was. So like a mid 40 mother in North Baltimore. And it's changed as I have not, as I write less of the content, because I wrote a lot in the beginning. And our editors sort of have a say on what our content is. And so, Our peak audience is, of course, I think this is probably true for every online publication, 35 to 44 year olds, right? With a bump on 40, 44, 40 to 55 and another bump 25 to 35. But it's 35 to 45 young professionals, mostly with kids who live in or close to the city. I mean, I talked about our audience in Baltimore County and we have some of that, but it's still, you know, around the center of the city mostly. So, yeah. But, you know, we, I'm sorry, go ahead. are still reaching out to you, that they're reaching out and they're finding value in, your audience is not tiny, but it's not huge either, but it is really targeted. as large as the banners, but our ads are a lot more affordable for the small business person than those two other publications. And we don't have a paywall, and people love that. That does keep our traffic up, and we will never have a paywall, because I don't think that's right. To be a community voice, you need to be available to the community. And so I... I will never go in that direction. Right now we do have membership and that helps some, but it's less than 1 % of our audience who gives to membership and it's a small percentage of our total budget, but it helps, right? Every bit helps, absolutely. So. your kind of outlook is changing and we talked a little bit about, you know, you have a newer publisher or someone who is named publisher, you have sort of different people in the seats as you go forward, what does that portend for the fishbowl? Like what changes are on the horizon or are there any changes on the horizon? Well, you know, we always want to grow, right? We always would love to have more reporters and we'd always love to have more staff, but I don't see a ton of growth. I mean, there's kind of a ceiling on ad sales for us, but we're having a very good year and we're plugging away, you know, just with the team that we have, we're paying our bills and we're getting the stories out. And so we're just going to sort of stay where we are now. I do feel like, with the changes at the sun, there's an opportunity for us. There's an opportunity for people to turn our way, but we need to figure out what that opportunity means. One of the things that we've been wanting to do for a couple of years now, and we've really committed some, we've set aside some dollars for this, is to really do some deep dives. And I think I mentioned to you before we started the interview that we're... starting that and we have wonderful David Nican who was at the Sun for 13 years who's our executive editor. He's going to be spearheading that and he's talking to a few freelance writers now to get that going but you know we have to have we'd have to have that balance we have to have some investigative deep dive stories as well as things like the hot house and the events. We can't just be candy and so you know I guess going forward we'll there'll be a more concerted effort to make sure we have that balance. And continue to grow our audience as much as we can. And we'd love to grow our revenue too, but I do see that just like all these other publications that are facing challenges, that's a challenge. That's tough. But we do have a contract with Google. They do pay us for some of our content, which is great. I don't think all the publications are going to be really lucky for that. And we, so those are really our three revenue sources. It's advertising, Google, and membership. And. they all, I mean, it seems to me when you look at ad sales and the advertising community, it seems like your market is really small business, which again, kind of just like feeds into that idea of the community. Like you are, you're for the community, by the community, and always kind of keeping that really centered. And so it'll be interesting to see what you do when you do those deep dives because, you know, And there is, I mean, just in Baltimore alone, like if you look at, you could totally do a deep dive on the Office of Promotion and Arts, which kind of keeps into your cultural aspect. There's so much content that's like, there are stories everywhere. And I also feel like there's just a lot that still isn't covered. We're really fortunate in the area because we have a lot of small independent publications and news sites. but they all, you know, and they all have their little niche, but you have to know about all of them. I mean, like the Baltimore beat's doing great work, the Baltimore brew, you're doing amazing things. You know, there's so many pieces out there, but it is, and they all have really specific points of view. You know, those publishers and I, I've met with all the publishers of all those publications that you've mentioned. And we've talked about it. We know that in the old days, all of our stories would be on a single sheet and, you know, in the daily newspaper, right? But that just doesn't exist anymore. And we've talked about working together, but you know, we're all so busy just running our own sites that it's hard to peel off to coalesce. But... But I could see that happening in the future, but we need to organize and get that, make that happen. But it is one of the difficulties for sure, that we can't all come to, we're not all in one place. You can't find everything in one place. Right, and it's that organizational capacity, you know, like it takes some administrative head space to be like, okay, how would we collaborate? And I think that's an interesting part of news media because there's such a sort of emphasis on, okay, how can we all work together when everyone's swimming so hard to just stay upright? And to keep their own point of view, which is also important because we need all those different voices. No, that's one of the most rewarding parts of starting Fishbowl is meeting the other publishers and seeing their vision and seeing that we all have separate lanes. And we all are very friendly and try to help each other as much as we can, which is so nice because in print journalism, it's a lot more elbows out. But for us, it's an ecosystem. We're all trying to help each other. It doesn't hurt me one bit if another publication takes my... one of our stories and puts it on their site. We're happy to have people use them. People have been very generous with us too. And that's been a great collaborative piece of being in this media environment. We've been looking... all comes back to community for me, like even in the way that you're approaching other publishers and other sites. So it's wonderful to see. And I've always enjoyed the fishbowl. So thank you for doing it and being here. Thanks so much. Well, one little plug I want to get, one thing about us that I love is that our publisher and our editor are homegrown people. They're not people who went to college here. They're not people who moved here. They're not people who came here looking. Marcus went to Carver and Nicole went to Milford Mill. They've lived here their whole lives. It's for Baltimore, by Baltimore. And as I mentioned, I did not, but my husband is born and bred here. He's like the generation of Baltimore. So. We're all about Baltimore. And anyway, thanks. thank you for coming over. It was really great to talk to you, and I'm sure we'll talk again soon. Thanks so much. I really enjoyed it. Thanks so much, Rebecca. Take care.