Next month, at the annual Block by Block conference for local news sites, around 100 independent publishers will celebrate the launch of a new nonprofit trade group that will offer support for the growing hyperlocal news industry.
Local Independent Online News Publishers (LION) will be chaired by Dylan Smith of the TucsonSentinel.com and has been partly funded by a grant from the Patterson Foundation. Though many of these publishers run their local news sites alone or in small teams, sometimes from their own homes, they hope that by joining forces within LION they can help one another grow stronger.
“We don’t have the vast resources that the big newspaper chains do, but we also don’t have the bureaucratic leadership that they do,” Smith said of the sites involved, which include The Batavian, run by Howard Owens in Batavia, NY, and The Eastsider LA, a site run by Jesus Sanchez from the northeast corner of Los Angeles, CA. “We can choose a direction and pursue it. That’s why we think we’re the future,” Smith said.
Unlike bigger professional networks—which include AOL’s Patch, and the Online News Network—LION will focus solely on small, independent sites that are serious about the business of local news. LION will provide these independent publishers with a year-round forum to share ideas about the most efficient way to organize hyperlocal news. They will pool resources to offer practical support and forums for new ideas, much like a virtual newsroom.
“The practical implications are in the day-to-day,” said Smith. “If someone has a coding problem, they raise a paw, and someone will help them fix it, which is much better than them paying a fortune for a professional.”
The majority of these local news sites are run by professional journalists who became casualties of newsroom layoffs. Smith was the online editor of the Tucson Citizen before it ceased printing in May 2009. He said that running the TucsonSentinel.com is a more satisfying, if not yet lucrative, path. “Despite my editing duties, and business duties, I’m out reporting way more than I ever was when I was in a newsroom,” he said.
Howard Owens, who started running The Batavian independently in 2009 after its publisher, GateHouse Media, announced plans for it to be shut down, said that the trade group was the natural way for the growing number of local news sites to evolve. “We have nothing in common with newspaper corporations, nothing in common with mega-conglomerates like Patch,” he said. “But we do have a lot in common with each other.”
What qualifies as a hyperlocal news site? It would be nice to feel as if I'm not just floating out here on my own.
Leland Dart
Publisher, MyEverettNews.com
#1 Posted by Leland Dart, CJR on Mon 20 Aug 2012 at 05:24 PM
Contact information for LION can be found here: http://www.lionpublishers.com/
#2 Posted by Kira Goldenberg, CJR on Mon 20 Aug 2012 at 05:37 PM
Howard says: “We have nothing in common with newspaper corporations, nothing in common with mega-conglomerates like Patch,” Really? How about the First Amendment, Freedom of Information, public records acts, open meeting laws, New York Times v. Sullivan, Press-Enterprise I, Press-Enterprise II, cameras in the courts, live blogging in the courts, access to schools, disaster sites, access to the military, statehouses, law enforcement, Anti-SLAPP laws, Shield laws, correction statutes, Sec. 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the RCFP, SPLC, SPJ, the education of the next generation of journalists, advertising and business professionals, a consistent and predictable business regulatory environment, the health and welfare and economic viability of the communities we serve and the ability to gather our collective strength when necessary protect all these interests? I think we have a lot in common.
#3 Posted by Tom Newton, CJR on Tue 21 Aug 2012 at 01:36 PM
@Tom Newton
Although Howard Owens is more than capable of speaking for himself, it might be pointed out that you've taken the nothing-in-common quote out of context.
For at least the last five years it's been evident that the critical problem with local journalism as it transitions into the online realm is not really a news side issue. It's more a broken business model issue. To torture a metaphor, saying that Aol's Patch is the same as The Batavian is like saying McDonald's is the same as Rosie's Cafe on Main Street because both restaurants serve food.
What's also interesting is that up until recently the conventional wisdom in the news business has been that a local model can't work without large economies of scale. The reality is closer to the fact that although it is a difficult process, there are independent local efforts that actually turn a modest profit.
Meanwhile, Aol's Patch lost an estimated $140 million last year, and could likely lose an additional $120 million this year.
So the question becomes this: who is doing what right, and how are they doing it?
#4 Posted by Perry Gaskill, CJR on Tue 21 Aug 2012 at 04:22 PM