RE: FW: NewsWorks: Back-to-the-future community news
It's hard building an online community from scratch. Will anyone show up? Will they come back? Will they be nice to each other? A year ago, Philadelphia's WHYY launched NewsWorks, a hyperlocal, pro-am news site for northwest Philly. It was the station's first serious foray into online news, and a year later, here's a taste of what's...
Homicide Watch D.C., buoyed by big growth, seeks a new home in a local newsroom
Since we last checked in with Homicide Watch D.C., Laura Amico has continued to make good on her site's promise: Mark every death. Remember every victim. Follow every case. Amico, a former newspaper reporter, has indexed the victims, suspects, and details of every murder committed in Washington, D.C., since September 2010, attempting to collect personal...
Bob Calo: What football pep talks taught hyperlocal reporters
Our sister publication Nieman Reports is out with its summer 2011 issue, "Links That Bind Us," which focuses on the role community plays in journalism. We're highlighting a few entries that connect with subjects we follow at the Lab. In this piece, Bob Calo writes about his experience turning Berkeley j-school students into hyperlocal reporters....
FCC to media: Don’t look to us, we can’t help you
When the FCC said it was putting together a report on the future of media, many feared it would recommend subsidies and other breaks for traditional media entities, but the report actually provides very little help for media companies, other than some helpful advice.
A place for Homicide Watch: Can a local blog fill some of the gaps in Washington, D.C.’s crime coverage?
Residents of the Washington, DC area gravitate to Homicide Watch, a blog that has filled a vacuum in media coverage since it was launched in September 2010. Laura and Chris Amico, the married couple who run the site, have spent many days and nights since that launch fulfilling its main mission, outlined under its title:...
Lance Knobel: For hyperlocal news, we local players will have the edge
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of local online news sites, most of them run by local entrepreneurs, bootstrapping their way to sustainability (I avoid the term hyperlocal because it's meaningless to most people). They get virtually no attention from most media observers. When attention is paid to what's happening in local journalism the focus is...
Wait, everyone! TBD’s not dead, but changes coming with TV takeover
Big news for TBD today: The site, the Washington Post reported, is being taken over by owner Allbritton Communications' TV station, WJLA. (On its six-month birthday, no less.) This seemed, at first blush, dire news. (Jeff Jarvis: "I'm sitting shiva for TBD.com. So young.") TBD has been known, after all — despite its corporate owner...
The NJ News Co-op
Please take a look at — and rate and comment on! — a proposal I helped draft for the Knight News Challenge proposing a co-op to support the emerging local news ecosystem in otherwise-deprived New Jersey.
The idea is that the scattered, independent members of that ecosystem need help to (1) curate and share the best...
This Week in Review: NPR at a crossroads, hyperlocal’s personal issue, and keeping comments real