What happens when you get gurus of local media to write essays? The latest Nieman Reports.
In the introduction Melissa Ludtke writes, “With constantly updated international and national news reporting and commentary just a click away, hometown readers need different reasons to go to their local newspaper, in print or online. In this issue of Nieman Reports, we will explore what local news reporting can look like and what a hometown focus can mean for journalists, newspapers, Web sites, and those who consume this news and information.”
Nieman Reports from Harvard University asked the question “Is local news the answer?” and has gathered more than 20 answers from academics, journalists and newspaper executives. Their collective answers: It depends on what you’re seeking the answer to.
What local can mean for newspapers is depth, rather than breadth – something that has paid off for newspapers like the Seattle Times and The Birmingham News. For newspapers like The Des Moines Register, it has meant bringing home stories on global topics – the local spin on the global environment, for example. For many other newspapers, it has meant growing audience and revenue in their own local market, while saving costs by closing the D.C. bureau or not sending anyone abroad – instead choosing to rely on the AP and Reuters for foreign news.
All the writers have some positive thoughts about local – that it’s important and interesting for readers. But, the writers are divided on whether local will be the financial answer for struggling newspapers.
The Cliffs Notes Version
If you only have time to read a few of the thought-provoking essays in the Winter Nieman Reports, start with these:
The introduction by Ludtke will provide a decent framework and context.
Newspapers’ Niche: 'Dig Deeply Into Local Matters' by Brett Blackledge
In his essay, Blackledge, a reporter at The Birmingham News, writes, “Local reporting by newspapers, more than any other journalistic offering, has survived it all—the advent of radio, television, cable and even the Internet. It’s what we do best. And it’s what readers love most. But it is becoming increasingly more difficult to hear the soft, steady voices of daily newspapers among what has become a shouting crowd growing in today’s digital media…. This is exactly why strong, local reporting—and devoting the resources necessary to do it—is so important to daily newspapers.”
The ‘Local-Local’ Strategy: Sense and Nonsense by Rick Edmonds
“So it stands to reason that nearly any newspaper’s franchise—now and in the foreseeable future—will be local news, probably with distinctive variations in print and online. Smaller circulation dailies, which only this year are beginning to feel the advertising pinch, made that call years ago and have, relatively speaking, prospered as most metros became distressed,” Edmonds wrote in his essay. “As of the end of 2007, here is my scorecard on hyperlocal. Does its content, for the most part, merit being called “news” in the way journalists have understood the word? Maybe, but often not. Will it work as a business? Maybe, but there is little encouraging evidence yet. Meanwhile, thinning the traditional print report, even if financially necessary, runs risks of its own—like losing the attention of loyal print readers even as advertising on the printed page is likely to provide most of the advertising revenues well into the next decade.”
Forgetting Why Reporters Choose the Work They Do by Will Bunch
Bunch acknowledges many journalists who grew up watching “All the President’s Men” didn’t exactly expect to still be covering “local” when they reached mid-career. It’s a stumbling block for many journalists. But, Bunch wrote, “For the rest of us, journalism will die if it does not become more local, or even something called “hyperlocal.” The theory goes like this: readers seeking out world or national news on the Web won’t bother with local sites or their city’s daily newspaper when they can go directly to global sites on the Internet.” Sobering, but true.
In addition, Rob Curley, Kyle Leonard and Geoff Dougherty take us behind the scenes of their respective paper’s local efforts with Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive’s Loudoun Extra, The Tribune Co.’s TribLocal and ChiTownDailyNews.org.