Gannett

Chris Lopez’s post below got me thinking about the latest savior of newspapers, going hyperlocal. I’m all for it – everybody wants to know what’s going on in the community, on their street if possible. They like reading about themselves – and learning more about what is literally going on around them. In my neighborhood, for example, there are two or three local listservs that are constantly humming with tips and information about local development news, recent crimes, new restaurants, yard sales. In most places a gulf still yawns between this ongoing conversation and the local newspaper. Lots of interesting and important stuff gets passed over out as too local, too parochial, too small. There have never been enough staffers or space in the paper to get down to the block-by-block level. Now, on the web, space is no problem. With online networking of various kinds, finding what’s happening on a given block is no longer a problem either.

But even with these tools now at their fingertips, newspapers aren’t that great at this. The Washington Post is my local paper, and has a great, nationally-acclaimed website. But if you drill down past the marquee stuff – the political and foreign reportage, opinion, Style – it starts to get fuzzy. One example: The other day I wanted to place an announcement of an upcoming event on the Saturday religion page. The first problem was navigating to the spot to submit something. I know where and when to find this info in the daily paper, but I didn’t have that. On the website, you have to find the religion page, scroll to the bottom to find event listings, click on that, then go to the end of the second page to find a sentence telling you what to do (mail something in, call, or – last – send an email). It’s now Saturday night – but this week’s event listing, from this morning’s paper, has not yet been posted to the page. If I’m looking to attend some event on, ahem, Sunday, I’m out of luck.

It’s easy to see what happened here. Somebody has transferred the content of the dead tree edition to the web – too slowly – but not thought about how to use the power of the new format.

So, great on the hyperlocal, for existing newspapers and new ones as well. An old friend, Paul Bass, founded a hyperlocal paper called the New Haven Independent that skillfully burrows into the life of that city, and does it on a shoestring. You don't need a huge corporation backing you to do this. That's great. But that fact alone could mean trouble for traditional newspapers going this route - they won't have the field to themselves.

That's just one of the caveats with going hyperlocal.

In 2004 and the beginning of 2005, the Contra Costa Times established its strategic plan for the future, built around the concept of hyper-local news. The 180,000-circ. newspaper (200-plus journalists), located east of San Francisco, would create a citizen-based site to emphasize unique-value local content, and then match that vision in print.

The hyper-local concept would allow the paper to establish the capability for citizen participation in its news creation. It would hold community meetings to recruit citizen journalists, then offer those citizen journalists training in order to create pro-am journalism projects. I know about it because I was one of the architects of the plan in my position as executive editor and vice president of news. Little did we know that Knight Ridder, our parent company, would soon be on the auction block, and the vision we created would be collecting dust.

Fast forward to November 2006, and the memo issued by Gannett CEO Craig Dubow. In it he calls for an emphasis on "local,local" content.

So, exactly how did the (Fort Myers, Fla.) News-Press succeed in its efforts at crowdsourcing with its investigation into utility rates in Cape Coral, Fla.?

Earlier in the summer, the News-Press asked for citizens help in investigating ongoing concerns over price hikes in their utility assessments, due to extensions of the systems. The community responded in full force – and through the newspaper (not because of it) did the journalism that got their concerns addressed.

The News-Press operation has gained some notoriety since Gannett's big reorganization announcement last week. Gannett's decision to rename the newsrooms at its 90 newspapers as "information centers" is part of a larger philosophical move to focus on cross-platform distribution and citizen journalism. For the most part, those inside and outside the industry applauded the move and a recent investigation by the News-Press newspaper and Web operation, owned by Gannett, has been cited as an early success story in the effort. (For another perspective, check out this and for good roundup coverage, check out Jeff Howe's summary.)

But, what about these citizen journalists? What motivates citizens to take part in such an enterprise?

As one citizen journalist put it, "it helps to have a dog in the race."

Citizen journalism is a term that for years has drawn a visceral and negative reaction from professional journalists. But it may be on its way to some respectability in journalistic circles after Gannett's announcement on Friday to fundamentally alter the way news is gathered at its many properties.

Say goodbye to the daily tunnel vision. Gannett's newspapers will now have reporters and editors focused on delivering local news across multiple platforms. And they'll be finding ways to use the locals to get out the news. (See CEO Craig Dubow's memo about the changes.)

Gannett is the company that brought a journalistic revolution in 1982 with USA Today -- a newspaper that was dominated by short stories, big pictures, info-graphics and lots and lots of color. At the time, professionals at many of the major institutions dismissed Gannett's efforts. Just part of the dumbing down of America, they said. Today we realize there was a lot of innovation there.

Newspapers, including Gannett's, have traditionally operated in silos: national reporters and editors covered national news, photographers took care of the images, etc. Gannett takes all these traditions and throws them out the window. The focus will be on delivering information, not job titles and section loyalties.