This story from American Journalism Review shows how some have a desire for news about the communities they live in that can’t be met by most metro news organizations. “Larger dailies, which are closing down and/or going to online versions, will not cover the news, community events and announcements of small towns,” the paper’s editor says. “We have to do it ourselves. It is the only way we’ll stay informed and connected. Whether it is in print or online, community journalism is still of value.”
Category: Link topic
The NAA reported this week that the Dallas Morning News’ high school sports Website, HS GameTime, now averages nearly 2 million pageviews a month. Visit the site and look at it as a treasure trove of ideas for what you could be doing for the high schools in your readership area. Football season is just around the corner, and now is a great time to tool up a Website that can draw all kinds of fan interest – and advertising dollars. GameTime generates so much traffic because it offers what no newspaper has the news hole to do – stats, scores and schedules, standings, rankings, videos, slide shows, and the like. Plus, they let readers submit photos and videos of their teams. To that, you should add videos of your band at halftime, cheerleaders doing their routines, and photos and videos of what’s happening in the stands and on the bench during the games – all the off-action stuff that we never have room for in the paper but people love to see.
Who’s the audience for this type of coverage? Athletes and their parents, band members and their parents, cheerleaders and their parents, other family and friends, local sports fans, high school kids who’d never even think of picking up your paper, and so on. Build this site, and they will come. And when they come, advertisers will, too.
Rafe Needleman’s piece on Google’s business practices it quite interesting. He dissects the many industries Google has touched, and shows that journalism isn’t the only industry that has had the rug pulled out from under it by the Internet. On Needleman’s list: journalism (of course), telecommunications, computer operating systems, e-mail and advertising.
Do you know which newspaper has the largest circulation in the world? Or which one actually has its own theme song? Or how many use the Gothic font in their masthead? If you’re curious, check out this blog post Mark Luckie compiled, “9 things you didn’t know about newspapers.”
News executives around the country are talking more and more about a perceived need to charge for online news, but those that are trying to monetize journalism on the Internet are finding it’s not as simple as it seems.
Newspapers who are curious about why their classified revenues are down need look no further than this study: According to Pew research, online classified use is growing significantly. The number of online adults to use classified ads websites, such as Craigslist, has more than doubled since 2005. Online classified use has more than doubled in the past four years. Almost half (49 percent) of Internet users say they have ever used online classified sites, compared with 22 percent of online adults who had done so in 2005. On any given day about a tenth of internet users (9 percent) visit online classified sites, up from 4 percent in 2005.
Cindy Royal, a faculty member at Texas State University in San Marcos, has a great piece in Online Journalism Review about how news organizations can create “user experiences” on their websites. Some of her examples, such as the New York Times products she references, may seem out of reach for community newspapers, but many of them are very easy to do with free online tools that are already out there.
The New York Times has hired a “social media editor” who is going to be connecting with users on Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms. The first link is a blog post from Mashable, a blog about social media trends. The second link is to the new social media editor’s Twitter account.
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How to approach a video story
Colin Mulvany (The Spokane, Wa. Spokesman Review) just posted some great tips on how to approach video storytelling. This isn’t the type of how-to that goes through what buttons to push and what menu items to click, but it provides some very helpful advice on adjusting to the video mindset and getting the most from your video stories.
If you follow the Center’s Website, you’ve read a lot about the growth of community journalism in places you wouldn’t have thought of as being homes of community media – like New York City and Chicago and LA. And you know by now that community journalism is no longer a place – it’s an attitude. Even a few years ago, community journalism was journalism as practiced in communities – typically smaller towns or rural areas. No more. Now community journalism is an attempt by larger newspapers and TV stations to reclaim their local – community – roots, and thereby to reclaim their audience. To see the extent of what’s happening, check out this Pew research report, a content analysis of 46 metro areas that found 145 online sites that they defined as community journalism.