Celebrating two years of Wheeling Free Press
As our second anniversary comes and goes, here’s a look at this publication’s growth, top stories and a vision for the future.
On Feb. 8, 2023, Wheeling Free Press–known at the time as The Hudson Household Editorial–published its first story entitled “Wheeling City Council Holds Third Meeting of the Year.” Looking back, it’s an uninspiring title with a writing style indicative of a novice.
The meeting I was covering was much more impactful than it being the third meeting of 2023. The headline of the day was the Wheeling City Council’s unanimous adoption of an ordinance codifying protection for cultural hairstyles, or the CROWN Act, to the city’s anti-discrimination law. A two-years-younger Justice, your editor, somehow missed that fact.
Still, this inaugural story holds great significance to this project. For years, I wanted to be a journalist despite my lacking a college degree, much less an education in journalism. In December 2022, I came across a Twitter thread by Black By God: The West Virginian calling on “folk reporters” to attend their local government meetings and report on their actions. For an ordinance protecting historically Black hairstyles to be the first issue I reported on is a coincidence not lost on me.
Since that time, the name, branding and writing style of this publication has changed drastically (for the better if you ask me). And, through it all, this platform has continued to grow and receive support from the Wheeling community.
A reflection on this platform’s statistics
On Feb. 8, Wheeling Free Press earned its first free subscriber; and, to this day, that subscriber maintains top-level activity with our work (big thank you!). By our first anniversary, 120 individuals chose to subscribe to this project. Now, two years later, I am proud to say 872 people subscribe to Wheeling Free Press, including 67 people who pay me each month (thank you for keeping this project alive!).
People from 42 U.S. states and 12 countries subscribe to Wheeling Free Press. With 172 total posts (173 counting this piece), Wheeling Free Press has published 1.7 pieces per week. Through all this, just six people have unsubscribed from Wheeling Free Press (don’t worry, I don’t hold this against you!) Those stories have garnered 77,323 total views, or roughly 450 views per story. As a largely one-man self-funded team, that is an accomplishment I am greatly proud of!
Six publications recommend Wheeling Free Press to their readers, including some power-players like Appodlachia’s No Elegy Needed, John Russell’s The Holler and Dave Mistich and Giles Snyder’s The West Virginia Weakly. Collectively, they’ve sent 535 people my way, over half of my total subscribers.
Top stories over two years
Wheeling Free Press has covered a wide range of topics in Wheeling, around the state, throughout the nation and even worldwide. This has included homelessness, poverty, council meetings, high-price projects, exclusive stories, investigative pieces and human interest stories.
Here’s a look at our top five stories based on total views and reader interactions:
Number 5: “A tale of toilets and transparency”
This piece was one of my magnum opera. This exclusive (to this day) investigative piece dug into how damages, totalling several million dollars, occurred at Wheeling’s wastewater treatment plant. The story shined a light on combined sewer overflows (CSOs), inadvertent effects of back-to-back historic flooding and a failure by the city to inform its citizens of the issue. While this story reportedly placed Wheeling Free Press on a “blacklist” with city government, it led to officials explaining the issues caused at the plant.
Views: 1.12K
Number 4: “PART 2: Wheeling’s ‘Whodunit?’ What we know about Fiverr user ‘anandpatel241’”
As the title suggests, this is the second part of another exclusive Wheeling Free Press investigation (we’ll hear from Part 1 in a bit). This piece looked into a suspicious user on the gig website “Fiverr,” where users pay for services often at an affordable rate. User ‘anandpatel241’ requested services from a dozen creators, including 2D animations, voiceovers, video editing and flyer creation. This is likely related to an anonymous mailer campaign that struck prior to Wheeling’s municipal election in May 2024 and included a drawing of one of the city’s mayoral candidates. Wheeling Free Press is, to this day, the only publication to publish this level of investigation on the campaign.
Views: 1.12K
Number 3: “How a World Class Skatepark Came to Wheeling”
This piece is a special one for Wheeling Free Press. Her inaugural post, Community Correspondent Ella Jennings worked for months to uncover how the city of Wheeling was able to build a skatepark funded by legend Tony Hawk and world-renowned skatepark construction company Grindline. Because of this piece, the city of Wheeling moved to construct lighting at the park providing users nighttime access. That’s a huge win!
Views: 1.15K
Number 2: “Wheeling resident John Russell delivers primetime DNC speech”
It’s time to come clean on this one. John Russell is a good friend of mine and, graciously, offered Wheeling Free Press the opportunity to publish the first piece regarding his speech. Originally from Wellsville, Ohio and now settled in the city of Wheeling, Russell, who works for More Perfect Union, delivered a markedly pro-worker speech at the Democratic Party’s August convention, encouraging leaders to remember the working class prior to the election.
Views: 1.91K
Number 1: “Wheeling’s ‘Whodunit?’ Mudslinging mailers flood voter’s mailboxes ahead of May 14 election”
I told you we’d come back to Part 1 of this series! On May 6, residents of Wheeling found anonymous political mailers attacking mayoral and councilor candidates, the city’s administration and political organizations. Through a week’s long investigation, Wheeling Free Press uncovered that police computer-assisted dispatch, or CAD, reports featured on one of the mailers was accessed via FOIA by just one person in the city. As well, information on several ads were suspiciously similar to a 2023 campaign calling for Wheeling Chief of Police Shawn Schwertfeger’s firing. While the campaign itself is illegal, and an investigation by West Virginia’s Secretary of State office was initiated, no charges have been filed. The story was the talk of the town in Wheeling for weeks and, to this day, remains exclusive to Wheeling Free Press.
Views: 4.48K
Honorable mentions:
While the top Wheeling Free Press gives readers a look into our most popular stories, it fails to capture the pieces the publication is most known for. Missing from the top-five list is “COMMENTARY: Disinformation and a Devastated Appalachia,” “Wheeling council approves controversial anti-panhandling ordinance,” “Concerns over safety, accessibility plague Wheeling exempted camp,” “Wheeling City Council Chambers Overflow with LGBTQ+ supporters” and “Morgantown bans sleeping, storing personal belongings on public property.” While not as popular, I’m still incredibly proud of these stories.
A look towards the future
As this anniversary passes, I can’t help but think about what the next two years have to hold. As with any project, I would love to see Wheeling Free Press continue its growth. In the public’s interest, it is helpful to have an independent voice covering local issues devoid of advertisements and free from outside influence. On a personal level, I hope this project continues to grow.
Wheeling Free Press is largely self-funded. What does that mean? Well, I do receive funding from the roughly 70 paid subscribers. As well, I’ve received funding through one-time grants from state organizations. Still, the time it takes me to research, interview and report on stories is done mostly for free. Trust me when I say the income I receive per year from subscriptions wouldn’t even cover my rent, much less the rest of my basic essentials. I work two jobs to cover my living costs. All of this–all 172 stories and uncountable hours of work–is unpaid.
The more funding this project receives, the more work I can do. Conversely, if it sits stagnant or begins decreasing, the less work I can commit to. Ideally, the budget for Wheeling Free Press will increase, allowing for more advertisement and more in-depth coverage of even more issues.
This is where I’ll add a call to action (forgive me).
You can help make this project break even! Obviously, paying for a $5 per month subscription, or a founding member subscription if you’re able, will help my bottom line; however, I understand recurring payments aren’t in everyone’s budget. If that’s you, you can still assist by subscribing for free, sharing stories with your friends and sharing my social media posts (on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky and Threads). If you do this, and more funding comes to Wheeling Free Press, I can continue to expand throughout the city, the northern panhandle and, inevitably, across the state.
If you’re reading this, you’ve likely already done these things. For that, I am truly thankful. Without your support, this project wouldn’t have made it to its first anniversary, much less this two year celebration. Thank you for believing in me, Wheeling Free Press and the value of independent journalism. In our ever-uncertain times, your support is making real changes.
I hope the next two years are as prosperous as the first two. Until then, thank you for reading, sharing, subscribing and supporting.
Much love,
Justice Hudson