The Modern Journalist

When Hyperlocal Isn’t

The story of the demise of the Washington Post’s big “experiment” with hyperlocal content is going to matter to exactly one group of people: reporters.

But I fear that the story will be framed in the way The Wall Street Journal (normally my favorite paper to read because of it’s writing) choose to go instead of the way I think the story should have been told, which I’ll get to in a minute.

First, the back story. A group of tech-minded journalists from Lawrence, Kansas gained notoriety for building a massive online presence at the local paper. They were big news. A few years back at South by Southwest Interactive, they were all the rage there. The Washington Post decided to poach them in order to launch its own hyperlocal sites, essentially building its local audience through increased coverage of its suburbs.

The experiment did not go as planned. The modern and traditional journalists had — from what I’ve read — a culture clash. Since you’re reading this, you can imagine who won that battle. It wasn’t the digital guys.

Now, the team has jumped ship, heading to Vegas to work at a new paper while the Washington Post reshuffles its online operations. It hasn’t been pretty and the press loves not pretty.

Here’s the Journal’s lede:

For believers in the power of rigorous local coverage to help save newspapers, the Washington Post’s launch of LoudounExtra.com last July was a potentially industry-defining event.

If one of my students turned this lede in, I would have chucked it back for a variety of reasons: too many adjectives, too much pompous inflation and a premise  you can’t possibly deliver upon. In my gut, though, this sounds like a straw-man set up to knock down: this whole Internet thing can’t save papers, see?

I find it laughable that anyone would look at an old media company, an experiment in its suburbs and then come the conclusion that this is an industry-defining event. If it is, then papers are in far more trouble than I imagined.

The real issue comes, much like it did with the Post (again, just from my reading of the situation), from the complete lack of understanding by the traditional journalist where the problem was. The real problem came in graf 13:

Though LoudounExtra.com seemed to promise an ideal combination of innovation and marketing muscle, it has failed to benefit from the reach of Washingtonpost.com. Mr. Curley says whenever a big story breaks involving Loudoun County, the Post typically publishes it on Washingtonpost.com without a link to LoudounExtra.

That deprives LoudounExtra of potential traffic. Nor does the Washingtonpost’s own dedicated Loudoun County page send visitors directly to its online sibling. In September, when Time Warner Inc.’s AOL unit announced it was moving its headquarters from Dulles, Va., to New York, the Post linked to the story on LoudounExtra.com for a couple hours before moving the story back to its own site. That window of promotion fueled the Loudoun site’s best traffic day to date, Mr. Curley says.

The Washington Post not only had a separate section on its site for Loudoun County, but then it didn’t even bother to link the two sites together.

We also found out that there were two locations and two staffs, which meant there was almost no chance the Washington Post reporters were going to do anything of substance with the group.

And having worked in that environment, I can understand to a point the resentment that must have built both on the modern side (why did you bring us here to do this if you’re not going to do anything? get the hell out of our way?) and how that came back from the traditional side (we have 50 Pulitzer Prizes and you’re local experiment is getting all the praise. Good luck to you.)

And the modern folks screwed up as well. They focused too much on the databases and not enough on engaging with the actual community. Their numbers shouldn’t have depended upon the Washington Post. They should be able to exist on their own.

But the truth is this: the Post’s experiment was neither revolutionary or industry-changing. As it turned out, it was just another example of what happens when a conservative industry tried to dip its toe into a constantly innovating world. The two don’t mesh unless you have complete buy-in from the traditional management team.

If Google, America Online, Yahoo or Microsoft had any inkling of launching a truly innovative news service, now would be the time because it doesn’t seem like the big papers get what it takes to build a localized, modern news service.