Community

As national and international news come to be seen as commodities, some local newspapers are turning to "hyper-local" coverage to maintain relationships with the people formerly known as the audience. Some characteristics:

• Web-to-print publishing, meaning all kinds of obscure news is covered on the fringes by semi-professional journalists posting only for web, with only the best or most enduring bubbling up to the daily newspaper.
• Lots of community participation, including blogs for anyone who wants one, with editors selecting which posts appear on a central blog, and the ability to share photos, video, and comments.
• An events calendar as the backbone of what can often become a hip entertainment site.
• Mixing and matching of structured information, i.e. sports schedules and weather reports.

Three more examples, from Bakersfield, CA, are in the right column.

Gannett, for it's part, has created mobile journalists or "mojos" at its 80-odd newspapers; out in the community all day, filing text, video, photos and audio with their laptops from the front seat of their cars. Here's one paper's account of how it works.

Other ways newspapers have opened up to the community: an editor's blog, which talks about coverage choices, even inviting members of the public to attend news meetings (typical ed reaction: what? we don't even let reporters do that!) But why not? Tip: say they need to commit to attend three in a week, so they don't just get a one-off view on a day there's a single huge story.

USA TODAY can't exactly go hyper-local, so it's trying to create community on a national scale. Every  story can be commented upon or ranked. Commenters can talk among themselves. Needless to say, these powerful social media tools need to be paired with powerful comment moderation tools; in this case powered by Pluck. It still takes work.

The next step, many believe, is community journalism and pro-am relationships between journalists and members of the public. I won't go into that here, because you can do better by looking at some of the examples from the Knight-Batten Awards or exploring the Next Newsroom.

Why go to all this trouble? The people formerly known as the audience have other options now. What will make them come back to you? Not just news. They need to feel they have a relationship with you. And it's hard to have a one-way relationship that lasts.