If You Want to Know What’s Really Happening in Key West, Subscribe Local

A blunt case for island-focused reporting — and skipping overpriced wire copy and lifestyle filler dressed up as hometown news.

I wrote this. It was the biggest selling issue of The Key West Citizen ever, They had to do two press runs, and sold commerative copies. I am still awaiting my check. / TEDLUND

If you want to know what’s actually happening in Key West — in the courtroom, at City Hall, behind closed doors, and in the places where power assumes no one is watching — subscribe to Above the Fold.

Or The Keys Weekly.

Or Gwen Filosa.

I don’t care.

Just do something.

That’s where the island is covered as it exists, not as it’s marketed.

That’s where meetings are read, documents are pulled, testimony is heard, and timelines are reconstructed.

That’s where local accountability lives.

If, instead, you’re looking for updates on Washington, Ukraine or Colombia — or you just want to know nine good side dishes for the summer — you’re better off going straight to AP News or scrolling Facebook.

The Shitizen gives you global reporting for for $10 a month.

If and when it shows up.

And they will tell you happily how to dress a pasta salad.

Make no mistake… it is not a conindence that The Shitizen lowered their rates.

They have less than 2,000 audited subscribers.

And they are scared.

Because there is a lot of independent media that is calling them out.

Paying the monthly tithe to The Key West Shitizen for international wire copy or lifestyle filler that may or may not show up — if and when it arrives in your mailbox, because paper boys don’t exist in this day and age — isn’t supporting journalism.

It’s paying a markup for content that already exists elsewhere at no cost.

I’ve worked for The Key West Citizen — more than once.

I’ve worked for Solares Hill with the best editor I have ever known, David Etheridge. I’ve worked for The Miami Herald. I know how newsrooms work.

I know how stories get buried, delayed or missed altogether. So ask yourself this: why support the paper that keeps missing the news when you can support the reporter who keeps breaking it?

But this is not about me.

For $8 a month or $80 a year, you’re not buying filler — you’re backing original reporting, documents, timelines and accountability, published when it matters, not days later when it’s safe.

And if you don’t like me or my writing, go to The Weekly or Gwen Filosa. I don’t care.

Just do something.

Local journalism should be local with institutional knowledge.

It should ask uncomfortable questions.

And it should focus on the place you live.

Again: Follow The Key’s Weekly. Subscribe to Gwen Filosa. Like subscribe and follow me.

Just do something.

Because what you are doing by supporting Adams Media, isn’t working.

Get your news from people that show up and are not afraid of their own shadow, who show up, and report on this island like it matters.

Because it does.

Just don’t get it from them.

You told me there would be funny papers. This is not funny. / LARRYDICKMAN

And remember: nine out of ten parrots don’t complain if you line their cages with The Key West Shitizen.

The tenth just wants to make sure it shows up — and asks for the comics.

If you care about what’s happening here, you already know where to look.

And if you need a couple of good recipes? Email me.