Dear Swellesley Report readers:

More subtly than we probably should, we ask for donations to support our independent journalism venture.

To be clear, we’re a small business, not a non-profit. But we’re no media behemoth. Donations help to cover the cost of everything from web hosting to our newsletter distribution system ($26 per month) to our media insurance (more than $1K per year) to our calendaring software ($200 a year).

Down the road, we’d love to also offer stipends to budding journalists interested in contributing if donors would like to support that specifically. We were lucky to have an intern this summer who sought college credit for her work.

 

But we’ve heard from a couple of readers lately (and more in the past), that they’ve had trouble donating via the PayPal link we provide. We’d hate to think that people intend to donate, then get stymied by a tech issue on our end.

If you do run into issues, please let us know and describe what happened, and we’ll try to resolve this issue. We’ve created a fresh link and tested it out ourselves this past week and donated to ourselves. That was unsatisfying in the short term, but we hope it will pay off in the long run…

Regards,

Bob & Deborah

The story we broke last week about Wellesley’s Old Town Road street signs being stolen has now gone viral. News outlets from local TV broadcasters to the New York Times (“Old Town Road is Real, and People Keep Stealing the Street Signs”) to CNN to the Boston Globe have picked up the story.

NECN, the Globe, Boston.com (“There’s an Old Town Road in Wellesley. People keep stealing the street sign.“), Boston Magazine, MassLive (“Lil Nas X’s hit song is leaving one Massachusetts town without its ‘Old Town Road’ street signs”) and the New York Daily News (“People keep stealing the Old Town Road street signs in suburban Boston, officials blame Lil Nas X”) are among those we thank for their journalistic ethics and giving us credit. I reached out a a few of these publications via email or Twitter to thank them. One responded: “It is an easy decision.”

 

Others (including at least one usual suspect among local news stations) neglected to do so, either willfully claiming the story for their own or being too far removed from the source to bother.  Plausible deniability strengthens the longer a story stays viral, too, as the original source can get lost in the miasma and it can legitimately be tough to determine the original source. The reality is that shadier news operations will try to get away without giving credit, something they’d be a lot less likely to pull if the original source was a mainstream news entity.

Signs of trouble

We became aware of street signs being damaged or going missing earlier this summer, and had the fact corroborated by a Wellesley resident whose neighborhood has been particularly hard hit. She shared a photo with us of DPW workers in action, installing a new sign. We reached out to the DPW, Police and Town Hall at the end of July to learn more.

It was more than a week before we heard back from the town in a message on which the DPW was copied. I didn’t think too much of the delay, knowing that it’s peak vacation time and maybe even getting an out-of-office reply or two. Though I also suspected this wasn’t necessarily a story the town would be eager to share, not wanting to encourage any more theft or vandalism. A bit of triage might have been in order. We reached out to a couple of police chiefs in other Massachusetts towns with Old Town Roads: 1 never got back, the other said he knew of no such reports.

(Any sign “borrowers” want to come forward? Message us at [email protected])

When Wellesley did get back to me it supplied great details, including a short list of the more popular targets (including Old Town Road) and specific costs associated with replacing signs. While I’ve talked to a bunch of people since this story broke that haven’t even heard of the Lil Nas X song “Old Town Road,” I was quite familiar with its record-breaking stay atop the Billboard charts (hey, I even saw Lil Nas X perform the song live at Boston Calling in May).

 

I knew right away this would be a hot story. The combination of a popular song and an opportunity to tweak Wellesley would be too much for other media outlets to resist. What’s more, you can’t roll a wooden hoop through Wellesley without hitting a local TV newscaster or reporter, and those locals love reporting on their town.

I swung by Old Town Road on my way home from work on Aug. 7 to take photos and shoot a short video for Facebook, much to the chagrin of my son, who was with me and hankering for a hamburger Mrs. Swellesley had on the grill (he really started to flip when we made a second pit stop to take a photo of this bike). I then banged out a post when I got home, published it and linked to it on social media platforms.

I took pictures of a few mailboxes or other address markers bearing the words Old Town Road, but decided not to run many of those, hoping not to disrupt residents’ lives too much. Not that the owners of these homes (at least one valued on Zillow at $3.5M) probably need to worry too much about their Wellesley Farms home values being affected one way or the other by this media frenzy.

Playing the viral game

We’ve played the viral story game before, so were ready for what would come. Some past viral posts that come to mind include the Tom Hanks typewriter, Trampoline Man, and David McCullough’s You’re Not Special speech.

So shortly after we published our Old Town Road post on Aug. 7 I rather too snarkily tweeted:

It turned out to be hours rather than minutes, but swarm they did.

Most of the local news outlets did credit us as the source, though at least one oblivious freelance TV reporter didn’t despite me reaching out to her to ask if she would do so (sometimes that works, as CNN and others have agreed to cite us in the past when initially overlooking the original source). The story then spread to some of the TV station affiliates in random places, like Richmond and San Diego, that probably don’t give a darn about Wellesley.

Some of the local news outlets admittedly advanced the story beyond our initial report. They knocked on some doors. They put some town officials on camera. The local news outlets went wild on social media, begging Lil Nas X and collaborator Billy Ray Cyrus for attention, hoping for retweets or likes to help fuel traffic to their websites (don’t think either bit).

On Aug. 9, the town got caught up in the excitement, embraced the publicity, and gushed in a press release that it had become a TV star. That sparked a new wave of stories, and while the town cited us in its press release, most news outlets just started linking to the town website.

Wave after wave

The next wave of story pick-ups came from music and entertainment sites like Vice, Billboard, NME, Stereogum, and Consequence of Sound,  all of which did cite us. All of this has helped to double the traffic on our site over the past week, with the biggest spike coming the day after we broke the story in large part due to the first wave of publications citing us.

 

Following those posts came more on Aug. 12 from mainstream news sites like CNN and the New York Times. People started messaging us links to these stories, some of which linked to other stories 2 or 3 sources down the chain from us.

Entertainment Weekly and People also got in on the act, as have dozens of publications I’d never heard of (e.g., SB Dirty South Soccer). Most of the stories at this point are regurgitating from the early reports. How much more is there to say?

I ended Monday responding to an inquiry from a Time reporter, who wanted to know what this would mean for the town. I shot back a reply, and so the story continues…

 

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While I was sorry to see the Improper Bostonian magazine fold after 28 years — I’d pick it up in order to give my eyes a screen break on the train — I imagine locals won’t be sorry to see the blue plastic boxes go away now that they no longer contain the publication.

It’s now been a month-plus since the magazine’s farewell, and boxes remain on the streets of Wellesley. I also pass by at least 9 of the blue boxes on my sub-mile morning and evening walks in Boston between South Station and my office (though think a few have disappeared over the past week or so).

The boxes always remind me of a college antic that I may or may not have been party to long past the statute of limitations involving the transport of a heavy metal USA Today newspaper box from a Commonwealth Avenue sidewalk to a dorm room…

Who’s in charge of getting rid of such boxes in Wellesley?

It depends on where they are. Those on town property, such as the sidewalk by Marathon Sports on Washington Street in Wellesley Hills, are owned by the town. The one at the Wellesley Hills train station is the MBTA’s concern.

The town used to issue permits for the boxes but hasn’t done so in quite some time, perhaps because there are fewer requests to distribute print publications. The Department of Public Works has picked up defunct ones in the past.

Improper Bostonian publisher Wendy Semonian Eppich got right back to me when I inquired about plans for the boxes, and she asked me if I had any good ideas. I’d be glad to take one off her hands to store stuff in, but Mrs. Swellesley has given that a hard and fast “No.”

Semonian Eppich says: “We have had some interesting requests for them. I just need to take some time to explore them further.”

Got any ideas? Let us know: [email protected]

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