Set-Aside Alert has been published for more than two decades with great support from readers, but last week its mission came under fire.

      Rudy Sutherland, a business consultant who heads the Voice of Small Business in America LinkedIn group, posted for the group his opinion that several federal contracting publications, including Set-Aside Alert, offer little value because you can get the same or similar information for free on the Internet.

      Of course, that is true to some extent. You can find lots of free information, but you will spend significant time on the search. As we all know, in life you tend to get what you pay for. Free information may come with strings attached that are not obvious. Information obtained in an ad hoc fashion on the Web could be inaccurate or outdated, and that could cost you a lot.

      It might seem easy to dismiss Mr. Sutherland’s criticism as off-the-cuff and poorly argued, especially since he is not a Set-Aside Alert subscriber, and non-subscribers have no regular access to our content. And it was very disappointing to learn that Set-Aside Alert’s mission apparently is being misunderstood and misjudged.

      Mr. Sutherland’s criticism stung. It helped us to realize that we need to make our mission better known. Despite our two-decade track record, Set-Aside Alert apparently needs to do a better job of telling people what we offer, who we are, and why we believe we deliver substantial value to our readers in every issue. That is my goal in this essay.

Mr. Sutherland’s statements

      But first, let’s go over Mr. Sutherland’s statements so we can understand his concerns.

      On June 2, Mr. Sutherland asked his LinkedIn group members to boycott the Washington Technology federal contracting publication while he attempted to negotiate a discount for small vendors on its subscription price. “What seems to be at issue is the annual fee it charges, $429, for subjective opinion article content and no additional value that is not already available free over the web,” Mr. Sutherland wrote.

      Tom Johnson, publisher of Set-Aside Alert, submitted a comment in response, inviting group members to check out Set-Aside Alert as a source of news. In response, Mr. Sutherland expanded his criticism to include Set-Aside Alert:

      “What do you provide that is not already searchable on some form over the internet? Also, outside of no advertising; what makes you any different than Washington Technology that Smalls should spend there (sic) hard earned dollars on your content,” Mr. Sutherland wrote. “Frankly, what I am seeing more and more is merely ‘recycled’ content from your industry with very little original content if any at all.”

Our response

      Excuse me, Mr. Sutherland, but you are mistaken on several points. First of all, all of Set-Aside Alert’s news content is original and written by me. Second, a large portion of our articles are not available anywhere else on the Internet and are based on exclusive research and analysis developed for Set-Aside Alert’s readers.

Set-Aside Alert’s mission is to provide our subscribers with exclusive, accurate, targeted and unbiased news reporting and analysis on the small business federal contracting market, with personal integrity and the highest professional standards and ethics.

Recent Set-Aside Alert stories

      Non-subscribers would have missed these recent stories:

• Our exclusive survey of 370 HUBZone vendors, in which they revealed their greatest frustrations and surprising benefits of being HUBZone firms;
• Our original analysis of the latest federal data showing which groups of minority-owned small business contractors are winning more full-and-open competition contracts;
• Our overview of the latest Buy Indian set-asides;
• Our list of the top federal set-aside opportunities of the year;
• Our in-depth series on the Small Business Administration’s budget proposal for fiscal 2015 and lawmakers’ responses to it, including possibly big changes in funding for Women’s Business Centers.

      Our subscribers saw all those exclusive stories, and many more.

      Frankly, Mr. Sutherland’s comments about Washington Technology appear to be misguided as well (full disclosure—I was a reporter at WT from 2005 to 2008) but I’ll let WT’s editors respond on their own.

      If Mr. Sutherland believes that small federal contractors already are so well informed about the critical programs, policies, technology and budget developments affecting the market that they need no additional resources, we respectfully disagree.

Our mission

      Let me state it clearly: Set-Aside Alert’s mission is to provide our subscribers with exclusive, accurate, targeted and unbiased news reporting and analysis on the small business federal contracting market, with personal integrity and the highest professional standards and ethics.

      Let’s look at those elements more closely.

Exclusivity

      As I mentioned, I write every word of Set-Aside Alert, adhering to professional standards of journalism. Certainly, when the SBA announces big news such as an annual progress report on small business contracting, every newspaper in town will report it, including us. That is inevitable and may lead to impressions of news being “recycled.” But it is every reporter’s job to write and fact check his or her own version of the story.

      And anouncements are only a small portion of our news. Most of our news is researched, investigated and analyzed strictly by us. I quote competitors occasionally to be fair to them if they reported something important on an exclusive basis. All of our news is relevant and timely information that I have targeted for you and explained clearly so it is useful to you.

Accuracy

      Do you care whether your news is accurate? Of course you do. Acting upon a mistake could cost you.

      As a professional journalist for 30 years, I strictly adhere to the highest standards of accuracy and fairness in reporting. That means going directly to authoritative sources and reporting the facts to you, along with Web links so you can get more details. Can you say the same for all the websites, blog postings, podcasts, tweets or LinkedIn comments that you read?

Targeting

      Set-Aside Alert covers small business federal contractors, period.

      You can find a lot of other federal news and contracting news on the Web, including articles from reputable publications such as Washington Technology, Federal News Radio and Government Executive, along with websites, blogs, social media accounts, podcasts, videos, etc.

      But you may have to search through an overload of information to get the valuable nuggets about small business federal contracting. I challenge you to find a single free news service on the Internet that provides you with the breadth and depth of small business federal contracting news comparable to ours. There just isn’t any; believe me, I’ve looked far and wide. Objectivity and ethics

      Protecting against bias and striving for objectivity and ethics in news coverage are values that are critically important to me—and, I hope, to you, too.

      Mr. Johnson and I are fully committed to fair reporting at Set-Aside Alert in accord with the highest standards of ethics in journalism. I also have put that commitment into effect at Federal Computer Week, Congressional Quarterly, Crain’s New York Business, Connecticut Post and other newspapers I’ve worked for.

      That means, among other things, that the news side of Set-Aside Alert—run by me—is independent from the business side—owned by Mr. Johnson. It means I choose the news stories based on news value, and do not allow any potential pressures or interests from the business side to interfere. Similar boundaries are in effect at all reputable news services.

      You can trust Set-Aside Alert to deliver the news to you with professional ethics and objectivity and without a hidden agenda. Can you say the same for every website and social media group with whom you engage?

      We are proud to produce a news service that we can stand behind. We deliver real value in each issue. Do not allow anyone to convince you that being only sporadically informed is a viable option in the tough federal contracting world.

      Check out our website (setasidealert.com) to see a small selection of recent stories. You also can follow us on Twitter at @setasidealert to receive free tweets about the latest news.

      In this era of information abundance, Set-Aside Alert is a resource you can count on to be responsive to your needs and concerns. As our readers succeed, so do we.

     Alice Lipowicz
     Editor, Set-Aside Alert