Idea Lab

Bringing Hyper-Local, Citizen-Driven News to South Africa

by Harry Dugmore
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

Is hyper-local journalism interesting enough to engage its own audience? And is the prospect of being more "in the know," and more connected and more involved in one's community, attractive enough to inspire people to take the time out to do citizen journalism? The old adage that "all news is local" does hold a great deal of truth. News can be locally generated or outside news can be made local. The implications of any big news story - like H1N1 virus, a.k.a. swine flu - can almost always be localized to create stories about how this impacts on you, where...

• May 8, 2009
• 8 comments

How Many Homegrown News Stories Are in Your Daily Paper?

by Jay Rosen
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Let's try a simple count of locally produced news stories in your daily newspaper. Yes, the print edition. The whole news system feeds off the flow of newspaper content, right? Lots of people asking, what's going to replace newspapers if they can't make it? Expecting amateurs to step in is dumb, and it won't happen. But before we can face this matter of "replace" head on we at least need some current numbers. Let's find out what the printed newspaper on the local level has been able to deliver recently, so we know in rough, round terms what we have...

• March 27, 2009
• 48 comments

How Can Ads Support Community News?

by Mark Glaser
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

I'm going to be posting weekly questions here on Idea Lab to spark discussion by the various authors, as well as our community of readers. This week I'd like to follow up on the recent theme of new business models for local news sites. Many small hyper-local community sites start up with Google AdSense ads and other automated, quick ways of bringing in a small revenue stream. Eventually, though, they need to make more money than that, and must turn to local businesses to advertise. But it's difficult to entice small businesses online, as they are more likely to employ...

• March 26, 2008
• 3 comments

It's The Network, Stupid!

by G. Patton Hughes
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

My challenge has been summed up as making money from a hyperlocal community web site or, said differently "It is the sales, stupid." (see previous entry) That is a gross oversimplification. What my 21st Century Newchallenge is all about is building a sustainable business model based on connecting a community. That means it is always about the network. Sales and revenues impact sustainability but are secondary to the core mission, which is to develop the community. If challenged to say what is the community, I could just smirk and say, read the site; all 1.7 million posts. If you were...

• December 30, 2007
• 6 comments