SUNN Post Exclusive
As social media’s influence grows, the journalism industry shrinks. Ad revenue has dropped significantly over the past decade, and faith in traditional reporting is at an all- time low: only 14% of Gen Z say they trust news media.
In a contentious political time, however, these dismal statistics only served as encouragement for a group of young Montauk teenagers hoping to make journalism cool for the next generation.
In 2024, the winter before his freshman year of high school, Billy Stern set out to recruit others and create a weekly Montauk newspaper that would print issues throughout the summer. His vision was a local- run news outlet that would chronicle the stories of Hamptons locals, rather than the celebrities who come only seasonally. This goal was ambitious, but what resulted was an entirely youth- run newspaper that has captured the attention of aspiring student journalists, Hamptons residents and even the New York Times. He called it The Ditch — named after Montauk’s Ditch Plains Beach, a favorite hangout spot for locals.
The teens’ content is well written and engaging, yet the most captivating detail of this operation is that they’ve accomplished something few modern day newspapers have managed to achieve: they’ve made their newspaper economically sustainable.
They owe their success in part to their focus on clear, useful, community-centered content. Teddy Rattray produces a series called “Teddy’s Tastes,” reviewing businesses and restaurants in the region. Staff undertake Montauk “Tauks,” Q&A- style articles with notable Hamptons figures. “Waves and Raves” advertises popping happenings, “Montauk Mischief” chronicles recent crimes, and local shop CoreysWave sponsors surf tips briefs.
Still, the newspaper’s most engaging content comes when these young journalists take a dive into investigative journalism. One powerful example was their July 2024 article on the Montauk project: an abandoned military base that was the inspiration for Netflix’s Stranger Things. The local legend was that it was the home of scientific experimentation on abducted young boys — a rumour that has left a haunting legacy on the surrounding neighborhood. Stern took the initiative to investigate these allegations through speaking to local residents who had grown up in Montauk’s Camp Hero Military Base.
With The Ditch, Stern strived to create something for everyone in the community and committed to offering the paper for free to readers — but he knew he’d need help reporting and writing and wanted to legitimize the paper as an employer and business, too.
“I definitely wanted to be able to pay people a fair amount,” Stern shared. “If you give us your time, we’ve got to give you money to compensate.”
This vision didn’t come for free, however, so advertisements were a necessary inclusion. Initially, finding sponsors was a difficult task; the team didn’t yet have a product to show any of the advertisers. All they could do was create trust that investing in an advertisement would pay off.
“Me and our head of sales, Harry Karoussos, we walked around Montauk Town, went to some local businesses and sold our first few ads… We also sent a lot of emails, called a lot of real estate agents in the area …, and so on,” Stern shared. Over time, word of mouth picked up—and once the New York Times article was released this May, the paper sold the bulk of their ads for the season.
As Stern described in a “Message from the Editor,” his first interview for the paper was with Adam Mar, the owner of a local surf shop. This occasion was notable not only because it kickstarted Stern’s journalistic venture, but also because Mar opted to purchase an advertisement. This was a crucial realization for the newspaper: that subjects of interviews can be relied on as a potential revenue source, Stern said. American news media is only as viable as the economic model that supports it, so Stern’s willingness to combine article features with commercial sponsorships showcases an adept ability to adapt to the constantly transforming field of journalism.
The staff has embraced social media as an advertising medium, both for self-promotion of the Ditch Weekly, as well as promotion of local businesses. In creative videos on their Instagram grid, the team at one announces the release of recent issues, collaborates with a local restaurant on a Super Bowl video and promotes their new delivery service — $50 for a summer’s worth of news. With Instagram on the team’s side, promotional opportunities are not solely limited to print releases in Montauk, but instead reach audiences throughout the year and around the world.
The Ditch Weekly is only a year old, yet the teenagers at its center have caught onto something that many adult journalists have struggled to maintain: revenue and readership. Through creating meaningful and creative content, embracing social media, and searching for advertisements in unexpected venues, the staff of the Ditch Weekly have created something more than just a newspaper.
As Stern put it, “It’s not like we’re messing around here.”
