{"id":167356,"date":"2026-02-24T19:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T19:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/167356\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T19:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T19:54:08","slug":"the-tampa-bay-times-starts-a-monthly-book-club-for-news-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/167356\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Times starts a monthly \u201cbook club\u201d for news stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tampa Bay Times<\/a> journalist Lauren Peace<\/a> is a fan of her local bookshop, Book and Bottle<\/a>, a \u201cbookstore with wine and a wine shop with books\u201d (and coffee!). At one of the store\u2019s book club events, Peace had a lightbulb moment. \u201cThe business is packed, and people across all demographics are sitting there in conversation,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018wow, wouldn\u2019t it be great if we could apply this model to news?’\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting last month<\/a>, the Tampa Bay Times partnered with Book and Bottle to offer monthly \u201carticle clubs\u201d in the St. Pete store on Sunday evenings. Peace, an enterprise equity reporter, moderates conversations about a Tampa Bay Times story among its author and community members. The idea is not just to discuss the story\u2019s substance, but to give readers a behind-the-scenes look at the reporting process and decision-making that shape the published article.<\/p>\n

Peace sees the club as an opportunity to demystify how reporting works and bring people together to talk about local issues, \u201cwith the hope of ultimately hooking people who are already readers\u201d \u2014 and who already have some habit of paying for writing. She wants to figure out how to translate the \u201cbuy local\u201d enthusiasm and loyalty people feel for the bookstore to their local newspaper. The events are free to attend, but \u201chopefully, we\u2019ll convert some people [to subscribe to the Tampa Bay Times] in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the first conversation in January<\/a>, Peace brought in enterprise culture reporter Christopher Spata<\/a> to discuss his story, \u201cHome inseminations and gray market sperm: Florida Supreme Court case meets DIY fertility<\/a>,\u201d published last November. Peace picks stories at least a month in advance so prospective attendees have time to read them, which means stories need to have the right balance of evergreen relevance and timeliness to work for a conversation some time after publication. Peace was drawn to this story because it had a clear news peg \u2014 a few weeks before the Jan. 18 article club, the Florida Supreme Court ruled<\/a> on the case discussed in the story, finding that at-home sperm donors can become legal parents \u2014 but was also \u201ca story you couldn\u2019t put down,\u201d she said, written with an eye for craft and narrative. \u201cIt was fascinating; it made lots of people go, wait, what?! I\u2019ve never thought about that before.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tampa Bay Times, which has a paywall, put print copies of the story near Book and Bottle\u2019s register and began advertising the first article club five days in advance. The first event drew around 15 people, some of whom came for the conversation and some who wandered into the store at the right time.<\/p>\n

Peace loosened up the group with an icebreaker that doubled as a sort of informal listening session \u2014 \u201cWhat is news to you?\u201d She estimated around half of attendees were already news consumers and subscribers, and half weren\u2019t. Peace had prepared questions for Spata, but found the key was to strike the balance between interviewing her colleague and offering prompts for the group. One participant brought her child, conceived through sperm donation, and another was considering sperm donation but saw the price as a barrier. Those more personal threads led to a discussion of the reporting process, and Spata ultimately shared \u201ckind of a notebook dump,\u201d Peace said, getting into what made it into the story and what was left out.<\/p>\n

The second article club<\/a> took place the weekend of Valentine\u2019s Day. Peace brought in energy reporter Emily Mahoney<\/a>, one of the reporters of the investigation \u201cUndocumented workers built Florida\u2019s roads \u2014 and died in the process,<\/a>\u201d published last October. This time, the event was advertised a full month in advance, including in a newsletter for Times subscribers. It drew a higher turnout that included new and repeat attendees, around 30 people \u2014 enough to pack the small store. That mix included people \u201cwho already care deeply about the work that we do, interacting with people who are maybe newer to it,\u201d Peace said. (She added that both events so far have attracted community members across a wide age range, from college kids to retirees.) For this discussion, \u201cpeople came with questions,\u201d Peace said. \u201cThey had really thought about the mechanics of the reporting for this piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

Showing off the breadth of the newspaper\u2019s work is one of Peace\u2019s goals for the article club. \u201cWhat we really want is range,\u201d she said. \u201cPart of my goal with this is to put on display that journalism, and especially the journalism that we produce, is so expansive in what it looks like, how it\u2019s reported, how it\u2019s written, what it accomplishes.\u201d In March, near the height of the local Michelin season, Peace plans to feature the Tampa Bay Times\u2019 team of food reporters (the Food Hub<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Peace emphasized that this event is a low-lift experiment that she\u2019ll refine through trial and error, and credited the Times and her editor for being willing to let her run with an idea without wrapping it in red tape. She pitched the article club last fall, after hosting a more formal panel discussion<\/a> at Book and Bottle about her reporting on domestic violence. \u201cI\u2019m kind of making this up as I go,\u201d she said. For instance, while she\u2019d considered moderating discussions of both local and national news, she\u2019s seen enough early success with the former that she\u2019s leaning toward sticking to a local focus. And no money changes hands between the bookstore and the newspaper; the Times simply uses Book and Bottle\u2019s space for the monthly event.<\/p>\n

The Tampa Bay Times does plenty of events \u201cthat take a lot of time and preparation and are resource-intensive\u2026this is not that, and not everything has to be that,\u201d Peace said. She encouraged other newsrooms<\/a> to embrace that spirit of quick-turn experimentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cMedia organizations have already relied on their readers coming to them,\u201d Peace said. \u201cThere\u2019s been this idea of, like, \u2018we are the beacons of information and truth and the readers will come,\u2019 and that\u2019s just so no longer the case.\u201d She sees events like the article club as one way to get out in front of potential audiences and show them what journalism is, and why it matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we want to continue to exist, and to do the important work that we do every day, we have to justify our existence to the people in our communities,\u201d she added. \u201cWe have to get better at telling our own story and breaking down the walls between \u2018institution on the hill\u2019 and who we really are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo of the Tampa Bay Times February article club at Book and Bottle courtesy of Lauren Peace. Attendees are pictured discussing opening ice breakers in small groups ahead of the broader conversation.<\/p>\n