How a one-man news site beat the national media with a scoop on Trump’s shooting

“I literally sat in a corner and was constantly exchanging ideas with my sources, who were giving me a detailed account,” he recalled this week.

And he soon realized that they were sharing details with him that had not yet been reported by the national media.

Vranesevich put his phone on silent, told his contacts he would get back to them, and continued to cover the vigil. But on Monday afternoon, his follow-up reporting culminated in a major scoop: Local police officers were actually stationed in the building where the gunman climbed to fire. And another officer had alerted a command center about the suspicious man before he even climbed onto the roof.

The journalist said that as the only full-time employee at his small local news site, he was not surprised to break a major story about the most dramatic failure of the U.S. Secret Service in decades. It took hours and days for the national press, including The Washington Post, to confirm the story.

“All the news is local,” he said. “Everything that happens that the national (media) cares about happens in a community somewhere.”

Over the years, Vranesevich built relationships with law enforcement sources and followed the goings-on in Beaver County, from unsolved murders to dramas at the county commission.

He said that some of those longtime sources contacted him after the rally shooting to give him some details about what happened that day. They were concerned that the national story about the shooting was inaccurate or incomplete. The public would then think that local law enforcement had failed to do its job and put the president in danger.

Sources like these may hesitate to talk to national reporters, thinking, “They come here, get their story, go away, and they don’t care about me or my community,” Vranesevich said. “What they know about me is that I was here before the big story happened, and I’ll be here after the big story happened.”

As he was about to publish his story, Vranesevich said he tipped off contacts in the CBS newsroom. He knew his sources wanted their story to be seen by a national audience. CBS News published their story hours later, crediting the Beaver Countian for its original work.

Vranesevich started his news site in 2011. But he took an unconventional path to journalism. As a college student, he started a hacker news site, AntiOnline. But when his focus shifted to computer security and anti-hacking measures, he found himself drawing the ire of hackers. Vranesevich sold his company — he declined to disclose the price, citing a nondisclosure agreement — and decided to dabble in the other side of journalism after his work attracted attention from the New York Times, Vanity Fair and other national outlets. He started the Beaver Countian as a “one-man guerrilla journalism operation.” He now has the help of four or five freelance editors and contributing reporters.

He has reported on stories that have received national attention, such as the unsolved murder of a local teacher who was one of his sources (CBS’s “48 Hours” hired him as a consultant for its own take on that story), as well as on topics of local concern, such as whether government officials are filing timely financial disclosures. He also publishes a computerized log of all 911 calls in the region.

Despite all the friendly sources he has cultivated, Vranesevich has also had more than a few run-ins with local officials. He accused a sheriff of threatening him with a gun; the sheriff was acquitted in a jury trial but was voted out of office. Another local official tried to subpoena him into revealing the names of anonymous commentators as part of a defamation lawsuit, though Vranesevich himself was not sued.

Bill Vidonic, a former reporter for the Beaver County Times who now freelances for the Beaver Countyian, said Vranesevich is seen as a “renegade” of sorts who “doesn’t always have to play by the rules.”

Some of his stories have a certain editorial flair that corporate papers might frown upon. (He headlined “Nepotism Is Rampant!” over a story alleging a local judge’s hiring of a secretary.) He has also been harshly critical of the Beaver County Times in past editorials. But Vidonic said Vranesevich adheres to the core principles of journalism: reporting and confirming facts before publishing.

“He’s an outsider in terms of media, and I think that’s where his strength lies,” Vidonic said. “A lot of people approach him because they think he’s not part of the establishment. He is one of them.”

Vidonic sees a need for journalists like Vranesevich. As traditional news sources dry up in places like Beaver County, local newsgroups on Facebook have proliferated, but they can end up promoting misinformation. (Vranesevich has installed an unusually strict paywall on his news site, which relies entirely on subscriptions, in part to discourage readers from copying and pasting his stories to social media. He declined to disclose how many subscribers he has.)

While Pittsburgh media outlets sometimes report on Beaver County — NBC affiliate WPXI published several major scoops about security at the Trump rally, including that the officer who first spotted the shooter called command 26 minutes before the shooting — the Beaver County Times is the only daily newspaper devoted to the county.

Vidonic estimates that when he joined the Beaver County Times in 1994, there were about 50 employees in the newsroom. But the staff has shrunk over the years, reflecting national trends of a decline in advertising, changes in reading habits and corporate consolidation. Now the paper has five — three reporters and two editors, one of whom also edits a nearby paper — plus dispatches from the USA Today state capital bureau chief. They are hiring a fourth reporter.

“Local newspapers just don’t have the resources to report on what they should be reporting on,” Vidonic said.

The Times, owned by USA Today owner Gannett, also ran stories about the rally tragedy, including interviews with a witness to the shooting and a local GOP official who tried to resuscitate Corey Comperatore, the local firefighter who was killed. A Gannett spokeswoman also pointed out that USA Today was the first to publish the name of the alleged shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.

“The Beaver County Times has deep roots in Aliquippa and throughout Western Pennsylvania,” said Patrick O’Shea, editor of the Beaver County Times and Ellwood City Ledger, in a statement. “We remain committed to providing our readers and advertisers with trusted, local news, while relying on the power of the USA Today Network to provide timely national coverage.”

Vranesevich said he remains in constant contact with his sources on the rally shooting and expects to publish more stories about it. In the meantime, he’s also writing about the county’s top public defender and gathering more coverage on the murdered Mercer County teen. He’s constantly weighing his own limited resources to tackle the big stories versus the regional or national press.

“If I think someone else is going to tell that story, I don’t worry about it,” he said. “Because I’m hyperlocal, I can’t compete with that. I focus on what’s not being told.”