The Modern Journalist

Local News 2.0

After much debate and discussion, I’ve decided that the end of the book needs to be an outline for what a modern newspaper should look like. I’ve been kludging through these ideas with industry folks and tech mavens so I don’t expect this will be my final draft on the subject.

However, I do want to get my thinking down.

I’m going to tackle local news today since that’s the one area that local papers have no competition. No national news source can beat a good local paper when it comes to news that matters to a community. The problem is that most local coverage just isn’t very good. Even at its best, it’s a scattershot approach to telling local stories.

There’s a better way to do things, and here’s what it would look like.

The local news part of a page right now mirrors what national and international coverage looks like. There are a few stories about different neighborhoods, but rarely is there is anything in depth across all the neighborhoods. Editors get together and come up with what they think is the best story or two of the day.

It’s a global look at neighborhoods and communities instead of a street-level views of what is going on in each place.

Here’s what my local news would look like.

The first thing I would do is get all my reporters and editors together to discuss exactly what government and private organizations are important in each community. We would put together a database outline of what records need to be made available: legislation from local governments, crime, volunteer organization records, school boards, utility services, important companies.

Once we had all of that outlined, I’d set my junior reporters to fill that database with legacy records, gathering up as much data as possible. Making sure we had everything filled up so that it was functional in terms of finding information.

Then, I’d create an API so that people could mash that data however they wanted, while also creating a series of map overlays that would enable me to see patters (think of it this way: a map that tracked city repairs on top of a legislative map that outlined what monies had been allocated to city development for instance). From there, we could begin to see patterns emerging on how government and public life templated itself onto specific communities.

Once that was done, specific stories would begin to emerge from that database, which would be more systemic stories about what was happening — while also making the raw data available to the community, which in turn would give the community an opportunity to interact with the data as well.

The next thing I would do is set up at ARG-like community-based game that focused on two things:

1. creating content that is neighborhood specific (such as taking pictures of dangerous or damage roads for instance, and uploading them to flickr, tagged and geo-located in a specific way);
2. from there, I would hold a competition that the neighborhood with the most content would get not only a series of stories written about it — but would grab citizens who participated the most to file stories and be compensated for it.

I would also build in functionality that allowed people to post on a blog about their neighborhood, setting up tags so that it could easily be parsed out. I may even look into setting up a NING group for neighborhoods so that people could be involved in specific topics.

You’d also want a MeetUp functionality.

To do this, of course, you’d need a community manager to facilitate interactions with the community. You can’t just throw this out and let it sit. There are rules for community building (which I keep threatening to post and then…I don’t).

I would require that my reporters attend the MeetUp functions to see what people are talking about. We’ve discussed the importance of beating the streets. What better way to do that then to have the people come to you. It’s a great way to start developing non-governments/corporation contacts.

I would also actively engage high schools and colleges in the area, having them submit their stories to the paper with the understanding that the best stories that appear on the main newspaper site will get paid freelancer rates. This is a great way to engage young writers and to keep up with issues that people in specific communities find worthwhile.

Now you have an active database filled with relevant community information, systemic stories about neighborhoods, an engaged reader base and a pipeline to younger readers.

This is something that no modern media company can compete with. It also creates a viable advertising and sponsorship base for local companies.

And, if you do this right, you can publish neighborhood books once a year using on-demand technologies. In a place like Cincinnati, for instance, where neighborhoods and high schools remain important years after you’ve graduated and moved, this is invaluable.

I would love to have a yearly book about Loveland, tracing its history each year. Christmas, birthdays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day — it would be a boon to revenue because it would be reselling content that had already been created.