Update: Another article on online magazines for you to read.
For next class, plz check out Assignment Zero and have a look at this description of the project by its creator, Jay Rosen. It builds on the Wired/Wiki stuff we have looked at.
Plz also poke around Barista.net, an example of "hyperlocal" or "place" blogging.
If you have any other specific Citizen's journalism initiatives or hyperlocal examples, plz let me know in the comments.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
More Housekeeping
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4 blustery comments:
On the website for PBS Frontline's outstanding "News War" doc, there's a special section devoted to interviews with key players regarding the debate about hyperlocalism.
The Washington Post has recently brought in Rob Curley, who worked on hyperlocal intitiatives in Kansas and Naples, Florida, to start up a new online hyperlocal service for Washington suburbs.
Lauren Rich Fine, who's the Managing Director at Merril Lynch, told Frontline she thought hyperlocalism is the wave of the future. "I don't think people pick up a metropolitan newspaper today to find out about the war in Iraq or Israel," she says. "I think they pick it up to find out what's going on locally in terms of politics, in terms of crime, in terms of high school sports."
Then again, The Chicago Tribune tried to go hyperlocal on the web and it was a "disaster," says then-editor James O'Shea, since readers didn't expect that kind of content from their newspaper.
What do you make of all this?
If hyperlocalism picks up (and that's a big if), then I think it'll probably more of a threat to local community papers rather than the large metropolitain dailies.
I say big if because its success will probably depend on a number of factors, including:
- The number of people within a community who have access to the Internet (may sound trivial, but I'm sure there are areas where Internet access is still scarce)
- Among those who do have Internet, how many are actually interested in local news
If the proper conditions are met, then I think it can be very successful. Smaller is probably better for hyperlocal sites because if a visitor has to swift through a lot of material to find relevant, local material within a hyperlocal site, that could be annoying and may turn people away.
Personally speaking, I'm very uninterested in "hyperlocal" news. I get the hyper-hyper-hyperlocal stuff -- ie gossip -- from my neighbours and family, but have never had any interest in reading the local rag. Of course, maybe that's just because my local rags have always been, well, rags.
I'm a Globe subscriber and can't remember the last time I bought the Gazette. I listen to CBC radio for Montreal news.
But maybe that's just me...
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