James Rampersad
The Montgomery County based news outlet continues serving the community with news coverage in the face of nationwide journalism cuts.
Kevin Tierney never pictured becoming a journalist in any capacity. But since the founding of Burb Media in 2017, Tierney has been at the forefront of writing the headlines that serve the Ambler, Conshohocken, and Glenside areas of Montgomery County, PA.
However, within recent years, there has been a sharp decline in the news industry, specifically at a local level. This has spurred many news deserts across the country. For context, a news desert is a community that is no longer covered by daily or non-daily newspapers. Fortunately for many of the aforementioned areas, the news desert phenomenon has not reached them thanks to Tierney’s Burb Media.
Originally from North Carolina, Tierney came to the Greater Philadelphia area in pursuit of his education at St. Joseph’s University.
“My degree is in international relations with a minor in theology,” Tierney explained.
Following college, Tierney traveled around to different cities, working on professional tennis events. It was during his travels around the country that he noticed the need for more local communication within smaller towns.
The entire idea of starting a local news organization came about very nonchalantly for Tierney.
“I thought it would just be something that I could do at night and make a few bucks on the side,” he said.
And initially, that is exactly what it started out as.
The first seeds of what would eventually become Burb Media took the form of the Conshohocken, Plymouth Meeting, and Lafayette Hill based media outlet, More Than the Curve. Founded in 2010, More Than the Curve started with a focus on community events and local happenings rather than hard news taking place around the area. However, that all changed in one swift motion shortly after. Tierney cited a water main break on the outskirts of Plymouth Meeting as the first hard hitting news story that he covered for his business.
“I said let me just write up a quick report about this and see what happens,” he explained.
The story ended up generating around eleven thousand views and prompted Tierney to expand More Than the Curve’s coverage to harder-impacting stories.
In addition to More Than the Curve, Burb Media consists of two other outlets that cover various other parts of Montgomery County. Around Ambler, founded in 2015, covers Blue Bell, Lower Gwynedd, and Maple Glen. Whilst The Glenside Local, launched in 2018, focuses on the Abington, Jenkintown, and Wyncote communities respectively.
Arcadia University professor, Ryan Genova, chiefly operates the latter, writing stories about the Glenside community, ranging from local business spotlights to historical entries about the area. He says the coverage from the Glenside Local has not only been an asset in keeping the community informed, but also in promoting the small businesses that would otherwise go relatively unnoticed.
“With any new business that opens up, we have the ability to help them get the word out about themselves,” Genova explained.
Surely with entire communities reading your work, one would expect to attract at least a smidgeon of recognition? Not exactly, says Tierney.
“Generally speaking, no one in town knows who I am. It’s only after they meet me that they say ‘Oh, you’re the guy’,” he joked.
Too often with news, there is an immediate connotation with negativity, but Burb Media tries its best to present some of the brighter news of the area to those who would not find it elsewhere.
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