1. Getting citizens to submit stories online is tough
a. You have to really market the idea, promote it, and nurture your contributors
b. Establish relationship with them
c. Term “citizen journalist” is offputting. Easier to be “contributor.”
d. Giving opportunity to be in newspaper is a motivator, if you have print product
e. Less than 1% of population will contribute
f. Consistent contribution by small group makes casual contributing by a much larger group possible (Wikipedia: with a world-wide population base has only 615 core contributors) (BlufftonToday: with a 16,000 household population base has 600 posters, 60 addicted posers)
g. Site operator needs to be a guide, facilitator, trainer
h. Reporter becomes participant, observer, listener (spot trends and tips to beat competition to the story)
2. Sustainability online is tough
a. Barrier to entry low, barrier to sustainability daunting
b. Cost of distribution low, cost of attaining advertising high
3. Everyone focused on generating traffic online, not online revenue
a. Address the desire to connect personally (sharing personal profiles, insights, interests)
b. Address the desire to have multimedia and share multimedia (Bakersfield.com; YourHub.com, BlufftonToday.com)
c. Harness participation, aggregating personal media to feed print
d. Websites should be designed for active contribution, not for passive consumption
4. Professional journalism is needed
a. Easy to get facts, hard to get facts straight and tell cohesive story
b. Site operators realizing how much not being covered by MSM, or not covered accurately
c. Breaking news is a grind – you have to really work at it
d. Breaking news sets the agenda for what’s important in a community
e. Local papers have a revolving door of people writing news, changes every 18 months, under 25, from away; what is implication on civic knowledge and history?
5. Place Blogs represents a significant factor in the local media ecology
a. Place-Blogs (phrase coined by Lisa Williams) consist of sustained attention to a particular place, one person, one group, open to participation
b. Williams says: not a newspaper, may contain random acts of journalism
c. About the “lived experience” of a place, she says.
d. Examples are: BuffaloRising.com, DCBlogs.com, Edhat.com (Santa Barbara), highway278.com (Paulding County, Ga.), KingstonSprings.org (Kingston Springs, Tenn.), Olyblog.net (Olymbia, Wash.)
e. New site coming, Placeblogger.com
6. Advice from Steve Yelvington of Morris Digital
a. Use observation, not research; use wooden arrows, not golden arrows to indistinct targets
b. Learn from doing, throw it against the wall and see if it sticks
c. Discover open source, BluffingToday built on Drupal (so is YourHub.com, H2otown.info)
d. Assume everything obsolete in 18 months
e. Adopt “good enough” approach, not everything it could be
f. Personal leadership, not tech is the key
7. Summary
a. Analysis is appreciated, but breaking news is what people really click to
b. Getting the facts is easy. Sorting through them and creating a coherent story is not.
c. Getting content is easy. Getting money to support it is not.
d. A very small percent will actively participate. It takes a huge base to create a critical mass of participants.
e. You really have to promote to get participation.
f. Use many wooden arrows to find the fog-shrouded target, few golden ones
g. Hyper-local sweetspot is 20,000 to 40,000 population.