The New News

I run a sister site to NewsRedux, InOtherNews.us, which I started in June 2009 as a place to notate the expanding online, local news and information landscape. The site has 65 news outlet listings in 24 states (and I have a backlog of about 20 more sites that need posting). I am led to new sites almost daily.

Some observations in the months since InOtherNews began:

• The hyperlocal and new news ecology is young. Most of the sites in my directory were started after 2004. This is a natural coincidence to the rise of the Internet as an inexpensive, viable news platform, and the decline of the traditional news  industry, especially newspapers.
• The new news is personal, and is shedding most hallmarks of traditional media in apperance while maintaining ethical journalism. Quirky names not withstanding – Sheepshead Bite (Brooklyn NY), Chattarati (Chattanooga TN), Rust Wire (Akron OH and Pittsburgh PA), Broken Sidewalk (Louisville KY) – individualism is pervasive. Though many news start-ups are working within the confines of blogging platforms or Drupal, there’s still an enormous array of site presentation. Editorial voice is sometimes injected in coverage, usually reflected in story selection, and there’s an attitude in coverage.
• A large portion of the start-ups I’ve identified are run by former traditional media labor (myself included, I came from print until my layoff last year), usually past newspaper reporters and editors.
• Collaboration is typical. Sites link to mainstream media or other outlets to bolster coverage, the public contributes through op-eds, guest columns and comments, local advertisers are investing in ad space.
• Universities are providing some local news content through start-up sites. The City University of New York journalism school has launched online local news outlets and is partnering with The New York Times. Hofstra University in Long Island has an ambitious student journalism news site covering towns near the university. And Temple University in Philadelphia and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles are off and running with urban reporting reporting labs. Temple runs the Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods, and USC has Intersections: The South Los Angeles Reporting Project.
• News start-up founders, if they are not grant-supported, are sustaining operations with sweat equity, waiting for an eventual payoff.
• Small news start-ups are nimble.
• News start-ups are experimenting with different revenue models. Whether nonprofit or a commercial outlet, there’s a mix of traditional online advertising, donations, grant funding, sponsorships, and conference hosting.
• And most important: new news sites are bringing media diversity in their communities. The sites may not pose business and content “competition” to traditional outlets yet, but that they offer another perspective to the overall community narrative.

As a New America Foundation fellow with the Media Policy Initiative, I am taking a deeper look at community news and news ecosystems. I am so far finding that there is little hard data on this part of the industry. With little data, it is difficult to gauge the specific direction of these new businesses, what their needs are for sustainability and what their goals are.