Even though things have been progressing quickly for us, the wave of folks talking seriously about topics like hyper-local and open-source journalism is accelerating some of our activities. There is a definite "moment" here to be seized.
Today comes an article in the OJR alerting us to things being done in smaller communities, but by important players. I swear I wrote last night's post before reading this (emphasis mine):
"We are the traditional journalism model turned upside down," Fulton told me via e-mail. "Instead of being the gatekeeper, telling people that what's important to them 'isn't news,' we're just opening up the gates and letting people come on in. We are a better community newspaper for having thousands of readers who serve as the eyes and ears for the Voice, rather than having everything filtered through the views of a small group of reporters and editors."The Northwest Voice site is an embarrassment of riches. The front page recently highlighted Bulldog Day at middle school, when parents attend a day of school with students; a profile of a restaurant at a Shell gas station; and a photo of a nine-year-old girl dressed up like a cat for Halloween. Someone go wake the Pulitzer Prize board.
Now all that might bore you, but if it was a school where you teach, or a gas station where you eat, or your nine-year-old daughter, you'd be rapt with attention.
Sound familiar?
But if these nascent efforts bring more people into the editorial process and help the media cover smaller communities better, the so-called bush league content might just bring in major league revenues, at least in aggregate. The idea is to tap into smaller advertisers who hadn't considered newspaper ads before.The Northwest Voice has had growing revenues, and Fulton expects to hit consistent profitability by the end of the year, just seven months after launch. The publication has three full-time staffers -- just one editorial person -- and one part-time production person. Its site includes little Google-like text ads that link to site-hosted ads for small businesses, often repurposed from print ads. The real money so far is in the print publication because it has a controlled circulation that includes every community household.
Fulton says that it's not just advertisers who prefer the print publication. "The print edition is the product readers prefer," Fulton said. "Readers say they like the tangibility of print and also like the tabloid format because our design is very visual and uses lots of pictures. Over time, I believe more readership will shift to the Web. I imagine the print edition will eventually become a Web index of sorts in which we'll publish excerpts of articles in print and direct readers to the Web for the rest."
Jeff Jarvis (whose hedline I didn't see until after posting this):
"The business strategy and hope -- quite unproven still -- is that with a critical mass of very local content we will attract a critical mass of local audience," Jarvis said via e-mail. "And because we can target advertising down to a town level, and because we will use automated tools to reduce the cost of sale and production, we can finally attract and serve a new population of small local advertisers. Again, this is unproven; we are testing the thesis."
My take: It works OK in small markets, but it isn't really hyperlocal. It's just bringing back the local newspaper. It's a nice sustainable model for a small local operator. But to really put in some juice, do a hundred hyper-local "editions" in a big market.
"The question is can you create opportunities for citizens to get informed and inform others about micro-news that falls under the radar of news organizations who don't have the resources?" Schaffer told me. "And in the process you seed the interest in participating in community issues. Can you create a sense of news entrepreneurship that I think the industry needs? And in the process can you train a new generation of journalists in a new way of doing news and hopefully a much more diverse pool of journalists?"
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