What Happened Now, a daily email newsletter from WEWS Cleveland, “is a daily reminder to thousands of people in northeast Ohio that WEWS does journalism at its highest level,” says Joe Donatelli, the station’s digital director.
In October 2022, Joe Donatelli, the digital director for WEWS, the Scripps ABC affiliate in Cleveland, had an idea for a special daily newsletter, one that would be written like it comes from a friend.
WEWS already had auto-generated newsletters, but Donatelli wanted to try something different. He approached Steve Weinstein, WEWS GM, who was “fully supportive to breathing life into a platform we really hadn’t paid much attention to before,” Donatelli says.
Donatelli started by using the station’s existing email lists and sending those recipients a custom email asking if they wanted their “news written like it comes from a person,” he says.
The newsletter is called What Happened Now.
“People started signing up for it and some of those people told their friends and some of those people told their friends and over time it went from zero to many thousands now in terms of subscribers,” Donatelli says.
What Happened Now has a 50% open rate, he adds.
Donatelli says two stories have driven growth of the newsletter. “Our station executed comprehensive coverage on the East Palestine train derailment and I really highlighted that coverage in my newsletter and picked up a number of new subscribers,” he says.
In May there was a story about a missing EMT that Donatelli says really captured the attention of local viewers, and people were opening the newsletter to find out what happened.
“About 80% of the coverage in the newsletter links to a WEWS story,” he says, adding “the style and the tone is very informal, like your friend is e-mailing you about the news.”
Readers have responded that “it’s a mix of humor and pathos and praising good storytelling and talking about common experiences that all northeast Ohioans have,” he says.
“I can’t tell you how much I love the newsletter. It’s often the best thing I read on any given day. Really appreciate the time and effort you put into it.”
“This is a fantastic service you’re providing. Interesting, timely and mostly local.”
“It’s such a unique and genuine/personalized way to deliver updates in a world that often feels oversaturated with bad news these days. Nice work!”
“This newsletter is a daily reminder to thousands of people in northeast Ohio that WEWS does journalism at its highest level,” Donatelli says.
CLICK HERE to see the latest edition of What Happened Now.
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