This blog has been the site of recent debates over whether hyperlocal media can have a real impact without professional journalists (“A brave new journalism, Take 1” and “Take 2“). I thought I’d add to the discussion with some new links and thoughts.
I’ve already mentioned the Columbia Journalism Review’s national database of new media. An additional feature called “The Launch Pad” allows publishers to blog ab0ut their experiences. A very useful source of information and ideas.
One of the more poignant recent postings is, “What I Saw at the Hyperlocal Revolution,” by David Watts Barton. He left a 25-year career at Sacramento Bee to become editor-in-chief of a hyperlocal start-up, the Sacramento Press. The venture’s original premise was for its content to come from an army of citizen journalists (re: volunteers). However, Barton managed to talk the site’s publisher into hiring three reporters in order to “anchor the site’s journalism, providing a good example to the amateurs.” Barton added that he had “an ulterior motive: Without dependable content, laying out the front page every night with whatever came in – which often wasn’t much, or very good — was a challenge.”
The website’s format needed six decent stories each day — only half of which the paid staff had time to write. So Barton added filler such as press releases and volunteer-written material that could be “junk” — despite time-consuming copy editing.
The Press has yet to make a profit even with the hybrid mixture of professional and freebie material. Indeed, after two years as editor-in-chief, Barton was laid off — along with the marketing director. He is still “hopeful” about the future of hyperlocal media but emphasizes the importance of building a funding base sufficient to support a core staff of reporters and editors.
The quality of the Press’s content has been criticized by Sacramento journalists. Yet if the Press were transplanted to Olympia the reporting would be pretty high-end for an independent local media outlet. To my knowledge only two Olympia-based publications have reporters on staff — The Olympian and the Washington State Wire. Everyone else relies upon a mixture of press releases and freelancers with varying levels of journalism training.
Is it possible for a hyperlocal media outlet to fund a core staff in Olympia if the Press couldn’t pull it off in as large of a city as Sacramento? Perhaps not. But I’d nevertheless agree with Barton that the hybrid model is ideal. The trick is to properly scale the operation. Oddly enough, a decidedly old-school publication– Northcoast Environmental Center’s Econews — has generally managed to maintain a financially sustainable balance between professional staff and volunteer labor for 40 years. Persistence, diverse trade skills and relentless frugality seem to be the keys to success.
Tom Hyde
December 31, 2011
I think about this all the time. Short answer, no, I don’t think it’s possible.
I don’t think you can create quality journalism, and I mean the old-school, investigative, shoe leather, relationship-building, democracy-supportive, check and balance type of day in and day out reporting, without paying someone a “livable” wage to do it. And I just don’t see any centralized single outlet being able to survive in this fractured de-centralized landscape of information distribution AND broken advertising business model. Given that, I cannot find the economics in aggregation from disparate sources.
Crosscut, for instance, is barely making it on the non-profit model, in SEATTLE, and even with big grants. And, I would argue, they provide mostly news commentary and columns, not the kind of hard-hitting investigative pieces that are both expensive to produce and absolutely vital at even the local level in keeping power elites in check. They can’t afford it, and for the most part, neither can anyone else anymore. Who is going to spend a month on a single story for, at best, $200? How about a week? More than a day? An activist maybe. But then what’s the true value in the end if it is easily dismissed as partisan?
There are still some successes out there in long-form investigative journalism. They are collectives that sell their content to other publications. But perhaps that’s not to the point.
Or do we want to talk about the Huffington Post model, a hybridization of paid staff and volunteers, where all the bloggers got screwed? Well that’s not the point either.
Hyperlocal, got it.
Rob Richards said it best here:
It’s damned expensive. I don’t ever want to do payroll again.
Display advertising has always been the bread and butter for small print publications, and a bit of a dodge at the same time. Those days are over. For smaller publications, legals could be a big revenue source but that is still print-only as far as I know, and a bidded process with local governments. In the Olympia market, likely unattainable. Subscriptions were never a large revenue stream. If you were lucky, they paid the cost of distribution, maybe printing. Classifieds were once a decent revenue stream, until Craigslist and, interestingly enough, the Department of Ecology.
I agree that a hybrid model is a possibility from an editorial perspective but that ignores the business model which is utterly broken. With the advertising pie fractured into thousands of pieces, even on the local level, combined with the rise and brilliance of the six degrees of separation model of social media, combined with the fact that almost no one relies on a single source of information anymore, combined with the expectation that everything online is and should remain free, combined with a pervasive attitude in the general public that quality does not matter, and that professionalism is to be mistrusted, I cannot figure out a sustainable revenue stream for news anymore. And, of course, neither can anyone else. Yet.
I may, however, be cynical which is of course the death of art and innovation.
Tom Hyde
December 31, 2011
At the risk of offense, I want to add something.
I am all for the democratization of the media. Large corporate ownership and consolidation in the climate of short-term stock-driven profit over long-term sustainability is not a good thing.
That said, I just do not see much in the way of quality journalism being produced at the local level outside of traditional newsrooms (PubliCola doesn’t count, not local – regional – and they couldn’t make it in Olympia alone).
Sure, there’s some good content, some good commentary and opinion, love and sex advice, political intrigue, cool bands, good drinks and the best coffee, some we’re all great chamber rah rah, and even some great community building and activism … but news, real news? A little in fits and starts perhaps but not much. I know why. It’s hard. It takes experience, years to hone, instincts to be a good reporter, and craft to become a good writer (yes, there is a difference), and time, a lot of time. It’s a full-time commitment, and people gotta eat. It was once a great PROFESSION.
That is why I have always been skeptical about citizen journalists’ ability to create quality content outside the realm of the armchair, or the breaking news riot. But to me, that’s not the core of journalism, the kind of journalism that toppled a President. I know, dinosaur, right? I am soooo not cool.
olympiaviews
December 31, 2011
Tom, your comments are nuanced and steeped in hard-won experience. The question for me isn’t whether the system is broken, but who will determine what replaces it. Why leave it up to the conglomerates?
I’m with you on the notion that professional standards are crucial to good journalism. I’d also caution against glorifying the field’s past too much. The Watergate era was unusual. Prior to that time many American newspapers had all of the professionalism of Fox News.
The pinnacle of American journalism, investigative reporting, has always had a marginal existence. I’ll write more about that when I have a moment, but I don’t think it realistic to use this ideal as the baseline with which you judge the viability of a local media outlet.
We may need to redefine what journalism is in order to come up with more viable funding models. For example, in my professional role I spend hundreds of dollars per year on memberships and even more on conferences and workshops. That money is spent because it is pretty much the price of doing business.
Not surprisingly, today some of the better “journalism” can be found in publications for professional associations. That’s not necessarily a good thing but an indication of how the need to know is like water — it finds new ways to flow when blocked.
Rob Richards
December 31, 2011
“That’s not necessarily a good thing but an indication of how the need to know is like water — it finds new ways to flow when blocked.” Great point – reminds me of the saying, ‘Information wants to be free.’ Which isn’t about monetization, but about control.
I think we’re in a frustrating dark age for journalism, where we haven’t figured out how to harness new technology, but having tasted it, don’t want to go back to the old way. I don’t believe that people will ever live in a society where there isn’t a proper news source. Yes, The Olympian (as much as I hate to say it, given my background and bias) is that proper news source for many people in the South Sound. For all of The Olympian’s faults, they do put out a newspaper everyday. If it was gone, and there was a true vacuum, I think we’d see something pop up in it’s place. We’re too important a market not to have local daily news coverage.
How has the Seattle P.I. fared in their switch to all online? How has that affected the newsroom? The business side?
Tom Hyde
December 31, 2011
Yeah, chuckling to myself. I went way over the top with the rhetoric. Nice call.
I agree, the Watergate-style coverage, or the run-at-the-Pulitzer coverage where a reporter or a team spend a year on an investigative series was always the exception and usually the purview of the biggest publications. And I suppose it’s mostly gone now. One of the best series the Seattle Times has run in recent years, Invisible Families, was only possible because they received a Gates Foundation grant to do it. It made a real difference in people’s lives, at least in the short-term.
Okay, step back.
Let’s just talk about local government coverage outside the weekly meeting coverage. The quality digging, where the reporter is friends with the city clerk and the public works director and the road worker from whence all good ledes flow, just isn’t there anymore. Sure, you go to the city manager or the council member for the quote, or the response, or the lie, but you already know what’s going on before you ask the question. That might not topple a president but it’s still the kind of shoe leather journalism that provides the fourth leg of the chair. Right? It’s the old argument that all reporting is to varying degrees investigative reporting.
So how much of this type of reporting goes on now? Do newsrooms have the time or depth to pursue leads, or just cover the “must-have” barrage of council meetings? Are citizen journalists filling this niche? In some cases, they might, but it’s often from a perspective of someone who has a dog in the hunt in one form or another – a cause, a grudge, or suspect motives in one form or another. And, with all due respect, by definition don’t “professional organizations” have a dog in the hunt. Okay, so the water is flowing but ….
I do agree we may need to redefine journalism. But first, I hope existing publications take a long hard look at redefining themselves.
By being mired in the traditional models, both in terms of news coverage and allocation of news gathering assets and the financial aspects of relying on advertising, I would argue they are caught in a death spiral. I say, throw off the traditional must-haves of newspaper journalism that suck ALL the resources now, and try something new. Dig. Talk to real people on the street. Be a part of the community in a real way. Start reporting from the bottom-up instead of spending all your time quoting the talking heads looking down from the tower. Provide the information to the top about what is really happening in the everyday community. Build trust again. Stop snitching to the police (that was mean, I know). Appeal directly to the community for support. Do what only you can do. Use your professional assets to the fullest extent of their ability. Pretend you just got out of J-school and do the kind of work you always dreamed. Do not go gently into that good night. (rhetoric ran away from me again didn’t it?) And hey, you might want to invest a little in keeping pace with technology. You know, that tablet thing is kinda taking off.
Yep, never going to happen because first and foremost newspapers are a business, and yet I still hope, hope someone will see this, try this in a professional endeavor. It’s difficult and confusing to be both an idealist and a bit cynical at the same time.
I’ve long been a fan of the type of coverage and writing in The Economist. I don’t think you can call it objective but I do think it’s fair, and smart. It’s a very fine and nuanced line and The Economist is very popular in the U.S. despite it being a British publication. This style may well be the future. I know Crosscut has looked in this direction, and it plays well in an online magazine-like format. The old he said-she said, not so much. All facts, little insight, is boring.
Apparently, The Economist by the way is Eating America’s Lunch by “building a community” around their coverage and investing heavily into the opportunities presented by new technology. I believe this has been a successful business model since the Industrial Revolution and it gives me hope that a large company, if run well and with vision, can be quick enough on its feet to succeed in this exponentially advancing technological world.
“The question for me isn’t whether the system is broken, but who will determine what replaces it. Why leave it up to the conglomerates?”
Fair enough. And lest you think me completely old and cynical and mired, I’m doing something different myself.
I’ve given up on the conglomerates. I’m starting a new model (not in Olympia), although it isn’t news, more documentary and visually based (think FSA model), but with some of the goals and in the best tradition of humanistic reportage. I am attempting to form a partnership with the community and explore a wide range of alternative funding sources. It’s an experiment but it’s also just a decision to just do the work, good work, the kind of work I always hoped companies paid people to do, but rarely ever did, and hopefully good enough to find some funding in the long run. But the model isn’t dependent on (much) outside funding. It’s faith.
And finally, do I know you? Don’t answer. That you could be one of a dozen or so writers of this caliber whom I’ve met and have “transitioned” into other related fields is a commentary unto itself. I’m sorry you are no longer in the traditional news field.
Tom Hyde
December 31, 2011
From what I hear, the PI has not done well as an online-only publication. A former editor characterized it as “barely hanging on.” But, that is hearsay.
Rob Richards
December 31, 2011
The first iterations of a new model, at least as traditional sources try to keep up, are going to look like the old model (square peg) being jammed into the new model (round hole). With that in mind, I’ve never expected the P.I. to be successful. I imagine they’ve just switched to a different kind of ad-based revenue stream (still based on traditional concepts), which isn’t going to work anymore. Google will make sure of it – it’s really not even up for debate.
Thad Curtz
December 31, 2011
Just to say – the Northwest Environmental Center’s Econews is a monthly, and it’s local analogue is SPEECH’s Green Pages. I think that’s a different ballgame.
olympiaviews
December 31, 2011
Thad, when I have more time I’ll write a post on Econews. It has been a remarkably successful pioneer of the citizen journalism model. For present purposes I don’t think the paper’s subject matter or frequency of publication are as relevant as its unusually well-developed system of governance and business model.
A key ingredient in Econews’ success was a paid core staff, including a senior editor with a high level of journalism trade skills and a commitment to train multiple generations of volunteer writers. Some of these volunteers (including me) went on to become professional journalists.
Rob, the square peg in a round hole analogy is apt. For example, I’ve never understood why so many folks think that ad-based models are going to be the answer.
Tom, I’m percolating on your comments. The model you are developing sounds promising. I’d also offer more hope for the public media model than you seem to give it. It takes time to get the formula right. Even if Crosscut doesn’t make it, that doesn’t mean the general approach won’t work.