This post is exclusively for ARLNow Press Club members. Not a member? Join here.
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ARLnow Press Club
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This post is exclusively for ARLNow Press Club members. Not a member? Join here.
Members can sign in here.
The new ARLnow Press Club has a number of features we always wanted to bring readers — and now can with your support.
One that we haven’t advertised as widely is local editorial cartoons.
The topical, single-panel toons are the work of Mike Mount, an Arlington resident and news junkie who has taken his love of New Yorker and Far Side-style cartoons, blended it with ARLnow’s local reporting, and created something that’s uniquely Arlington.
We asked Mike to tell us a bit more about himself and his interest in Arlington goings-on as a humorous subject.
“I’m a former network journalist and news junkie that follows it from the local to international level religiously,” Mount said. “I’ve lived in Arlington for more than 20 years and have always found the Arlington news ranges from big city-type issues to hilariously funny small town ‘hijinks.'”
“My favorite cartoons have always been the Far Side, New Yorker cartoons and political cartoons, and one day I decided to give it a shot for my own entertainment,” he continued. “I eventually got up the nerve and started sending some to the New Yorker, and that resulted in a great collection I called, ‘Rejected by the New Yorker.’ I eventually realized ARLnow stories offered some good material to work with and started making Arlington-focused cartoons to push out on social media for fun.”
“My cartoons don’t always hit a home run, and one of these days, I’m sure I’ll have a great collection of, ‘Rejected by ARLnow,'” he said. “In the meantime, I hope people have fun with them.”
Mount’s cartoons appear weekly in the ARLnow Press Club’s Weekend Edition newsletter, which also features an episodic deep deep into important local stories and topics, as well as a “this week in ARLnow history” look back at stories from 5-10 years ago.
If you’re not yet a member, join today to save time, get informed and support local news. Thank you!
We just wanted to take a moment to thank you to everyone who has joined the new ARLnow Press Club over the past week!
Counting our existing Patreon supporters, who we’re working to fully move over to the Press Club, we now have more than 275 members. And we’ll be plowing all of that revenue into doing more local journalism that’s accessible to all readers.
But this isn’t just a donation. Press Club members enjoy a number of exclusive benefits, including…
- Early AM Newsletter: A synopsis of each of the coming day’s stories, before publication, first thing in the morning. It’s not quite Early Edition, but it’s close. Plus restaurant and happy hour recommendations, insider notes from our reporters, and more.
- Weekend Newsletter: Follow along as we do a deep dive into a local story, chronicling our reporting along the way. Starting tomorrow: a look at the current state of Columbia Pike. Plus This Week in Arlington History, editorial cartoons, and more.
- Daily Podcast: A 3-5 minute local news summary every night, read by us and not a robot, just in time for doing the dishes or taking out the trash.
We’re still getting ramped up so members can expect even more going forward. If you’re not yet a member, join today to save time, get informed and support local news. Thank you!
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If we’re going to be honest, when ARLnow was founded in 2010, there was no business plan.
Armed with a laptop, a police scanner and a digital camera, we started reporting on local news and then… just kept doing it. Eventually enough of you started reading that local businesses started approaching us about advertising. And for 10 years or so, advertising was our only business model.
That has changed last year, when the pandemic prompted us to ask the Arlington community for some help making it through the tough economic times. You came through, and it made us ponder the future.
While our advertisers have helped us grow into the organization we are today, with eight full-time editorial employees and four local sites, at some point there’s a limit to how much we can grow on advertising alone. And there’s a lot more we want to do.
If you follow the news business, you probably think you know what’s coming: either an announcement that we’re going to erect a paywall and make readers pay to read our content, or some sort of donation campaign that’s basically a souped-up version of our Patreon page.
Don’t worry, we’re not doing either of those things.
Rather, ARLnow is going to stay exactly how it is. Except we’re adding some new stuff.
The ARLnow Press Club will allow us to take almost all of those “wouldn’t it be cool if…” ideas we’ve had and make it a reality. Here’s what we’re offering for now…
Your membership will also support more local journalism — we will be reinvesting most of the proceeds back into our local news team.
Thank you to all of our readers who have made ARLnow the go-to place for local information in Arlington. With your continued support, we’ll be able to serve the community with even more local journalism in the months and years to come.
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