A mission to save local news

Tamer Morsy, Engr '24, is on a mission to save local news. In 2018, he started to learn about the dire status of the news industry, and he wanted to help. In 2020, Morsy's news app, SpotlightNews, was born with the bold tagline: "For Readers. Not Followers." Spotlight's mission is to provide a simple news reading experience without pop-ups or ads. You choose the publications you'd like to read, then the feed offers a wide variety of stories from each. You can also sort by topic. In other words, "you control the order of your news feed."

Morsy also decided to focus his app on college students. Spotlight now provides access to 350+ college newspapers and commercial publications, with more coming. Subscribers don't hit a paywall when they're using the app either. Instead, Spotlight shares 70% of its revenue with the newspapers themselves.

Here, Morsy describes his entrepreneurial journey and what's next for Spotlight.

What inspired you to launch SpotlightNews?

I noticed fake bots and accounts coming up when I looked for news on Twitter [now X]. Then I started to learn about the local news crisis. So, I recruited a co-founder to build out the tech side and lead iOS development. I also interviewed a lot of journalists. I knew I wouldn't be happy with myself if I didn't at least try to work on this problem, given the impact that local news has on democracy.

SpotlightNews is a news app built mostly for college students. A lot of times the only publication left in town is the college paper. And the aging subscriber base is a big problem for news organizations. When I started talking to college students, they said that they liked reading the news, which runs counter to popular belief.

They can go on the app, read their college newspaper digitally, and get access to many other publications. We help college students get access to the news in a different way, where they can control their newsfeed, and it's not driven by an algorithm. And we share revenue with the newspapers to help them get a younger client base.

Tell me about launching Spotlight.

It was extremely hard. We were slated to launch in beta in March 2020, which was the worst time in the world to launch an app for college students. Colleges had shut down with COVID. We scrapped the launch and tried to figure out a way to survive. We ended up waiting until 2021, and we launched with just a few universities. Then we learned that we needed to improve our app. Since then, we've slowly added more universities. Now, we have more than 100.

What was the hardest part of launching this app?

Newsrooms usually use an outdated content management system, and they often have a broken RSS feed or API. Most journalists aren't taught digital publishing, which includes tagging, locations, or how to upload media. From a technical perspective, we had to take this into account and assist with tagging when we pulled their content into our feeds. Recruiting talent is also a challenge, and it's hard to pitch a newspaper idea to investors. I've also learned that selling to universities is a bit of a challenge because the sales cycle is long.

What has been the most gratifying part of this journey?

I love talking to newsrooms that believe in us and our mission. It's amazing when I hear someone say, "This is the best news app I've ever used." Sometimes people will thank me for getting them off Twitter. I care a lot about getting young people into the news, and not just polarized news.

A lot of startups fail. Why has yours been successful so far?

Having a winning product and message matters. It's also been helpful to collaborate with as many colleges as possible. As we keep building, I know there's an opportunity for major success. But we need a lot of buy-in and support. I also wouldn't be where I'm at without the partnership we have with Sheridan Libraries, which was facilitated by Associate Dean Liz Mengel. Johns Hopkins has really helped me and encouraged me to grow Spotlight.

What have you learned from choosing an entrepreneurial career path?

Certain people don't like sitting at a desk, doing one specific job. If there's a problem you want to fix or a product you want to make, and you don't like sitting at a desk, I recommend taking the plunge. Once you have an idea, start small and niche. Don't launch and make your product available for everyone! For example, if you're setting up a service for bakeries, focus on gluten-free bakeries. It's much easier to gain traction that way.

I've also learned to build out my network as soon as possible. You'd be surprised how many people you can get warm intros to if you ask, and that makes life so much easier. It's also a great way to get advice.

What's next for SpotlightNews?

We're closing our first institutional round of financing, working on new tagging systems in the app, and watching how AI will impact the news industry. And we're still working on growing the number of partnerships we have with publications.