Results matching “launch local news servic”

June 24 marked Outside.in's launch of the beta version of its latest product: Outside.in for Publishers. Outside.in for Publishers has many functionalities. The powerful tool extends any site's local news coverage to the hyperlocal neighborhood level, as well as serving as a "flexible, self-service platform that allows anyone to easily create hundreds or thousands of new high-quality pages for their site, each focused on a hyperlocal neighborhood with targeted advertising inventory," according to the site's press release.

The product is a result of the increasing sentiment that today's local media companies "are forced to do more with less." It appears that the goal for Outside.in for Publishers is to serve publishers by bridging the gap between local bloggers and the publishers themselves. This would heighten productivity by simply having more web pages and inventory. Local bloggers also get the bang for their buck in that more traffic will be directed their way.

Joining the rising trend of niche news on the web, UK publishers the Yorkshire Evening Post and KM Group are set to launch several hyperlocal sites and for the communities surrounding Leeds and Kent, respectively.

The Yorkshire Evening Post will introduce 20 sites for the Leeds region containing news, information, sports and entertainment. Most sites will also feature audio and video

The city of San Diego is a microcosm of the current battle raging between the new and the old for the headlines of local news. As American cities struggle to maintain their regional papers, online initiatives are springing up to fill the gap left in community reporting.  Now California's second largest city is covered by three reporting projects, functioning on very different business models.   

The classic first: the San Diego Union Tribune is the city's only newspaper, which has an apparently bleak future.  Revenue from advertising has dropped by 40 per cent from 2006.  In March, a buyout shop, Platinum Equity, eager for its first publishing venture, announced that it would buy the paper.  Last month the buyers revealed that 200 of Union-Tribune staff would be made redundant.  However, it seems that the cutbacks at the Union-Tribune have not damaged its online edition, which averages 1.3 million unique visitors a month and racked in an estimated $10 million on $18 million in sales last year.

The Press Association is in talks with some of the UK's regional newspaper groups with regards to taking over from ITV as the main supplier of video content, the Guardian has reported.

At present, the PA provides free raw news footage to the Manchester Evening News, owned by the Guardian Media Group and to the regional arm of the Trinity Mirror group as part of a six-month trial period.  

The Rocky Mountain News published its final edition on Friday 27 February, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's last print edition before its move online was printed on Tuesday 17 March. The demise of these two publications, despite the P-I's continued existence online, left a hole in both Seattle and Denver. However, in both cities, online only publications have emerged. Both staffed by writers for the respective former newspapers, INDenverTimes and the Seattle PostGlobe are now up and running. The Editors Weblog spoke to INDT co-founder Kevin Preblud, and Kery Murakami who is leading the Seattle PostGlobe's effort, to find out more.

Funding

The two publications have taken very different routes in terms of funding. Fighting back against the mentality that information is free online, INDT is charging for subscriptions. Whilst much of the news will in fact be free, "it's really the premium content that we want our subscribers to pay for", explains Preblud. Initially, an target of finding 50,000 subscribers by April 23 was set, in order for the full launch to go ahead on May 4. However, the decision will now be based upon a combination of subscribers, users and page view figures.

Subscribers will have access to the INsider Channel, "where you can have a direct, real time conversations with our editors and writers" as well as a number of other applications and tools. "Insight, perspective, live blogging, live chatting, commenting, interactivity with writers and other readers" are amongst the benefits offered to paying readers.

Preblud believes that "business model is currently not working", largely due to the drop in advertising revenue and the decline in print readership. It is for these reasons that INDT is trying something different, and in terms of its model Preblud believes that "the cost structure is reasonable, the revenues are up, and with advertising and subscriptions I think we could make this work."

The Seattle PostGlobe, on the other hand is aiming to run as a non-profit, free to access publication funded by donations. Murakami presents the project as "for the broader civic good, as opposed to trying to make money." He added that "Seattle has a rich history of community efforts." Discussing INDT's decision to sell subscriptions, Murakami thinks that "it could work" - but his reluctance is attributed to the fact that he does not like the idea that only the people who could afford to pay would have access to information.

Citing the VoiceOfSanDiego and MinnPost as influences for the project, Murakami laments that "the big difference between us and them is that they were lucky enough to find some big pocket donors". He explains that the largest single contribution the Seattle PostGlobe has so far received is just $500. To increase revenue, the SPG has reached a deal with the Seattle Weekly, whereby the Seattle Weekly sells the SPG's advertising space and split the proceeds 50/50.

"We hope it will make the community feel empowered and they will respond - it's going slow so far but we'll see."

Murakami explains that they are giving readers the choice; "What we have done is said, 'We're going to volunteer and we're going back to you, the community, to put this in your hands. If you want us to do the work that we do, then support us. But really it's your choice.' We hope it will make the community feel empowered and they will respond - it's going slow so far but we'll see."

Coverage

Both the SPG and INDT have chosen, somewhat inevitably, to narrow their coverage from that of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Rocky Mountain News respectively, and place more of an emphasis on local coverage than statewide reporting. Murakami points out that "with a much smaller staff we have to be much more focussed, in terms of what we do," whilst Preblud concedes that "because we're an online-only news resource we just can't cover everything that the Rocky was covering."

"The Seattle P-I didn't go under because of a lack of interest or of readership, which is ironic."

Murakami hopes that the SPG will recapture the market that the P-I once held - because, as he explains, "the Seattle P-I didn't go under because of a lack of interest or of readership, which is ironic." There isn't, however, necessarily a call for a more hyperlocal approach to the news in Seattle because of several blogs already in existence which focus on specific neighbourhoods.

"We will be emphasising Seattle coverage as opposed to broader Washington coverage. We are focussed on issues that affect people in the city," Murakami explains. Similarly, Preblud describes how INDT believes "that our purpose is to cover the local market and the local community of Denver in a much more focused manner. We're unfortunately leaving out some of the more statewide coverage".

Both the Seattle PostGlobe and INDenverTimes will be looking at potential content-enhancing collaborations in the weeks and months to come. The SPG is investigating partnerships with public TV and radio stations, namely KCTS-TV. "We could be a demonstration project here in the state, showing how merging a public TV station, a public radio station and former newspaper reporters could work. The idea that we are pursuing is for the three entities to remain separate yet join to create a news organisation." INDT, meanwhile, could "end up partnering with some of the other local news outlets in the smaller cities".

Reception

"It seems that we really were valued and left a void that people appreciate us trying to fill."

The response to the new publications in both Denver and Seattle has been positive. "They've all been positive, keep up the good work, they're all rooting for us, and hoping that we can continue and that we can succeed," says Preblud. Murakami describes the reaction to the SPG as heartening: "It seems that we really were valued and left a void that people appreciate us trying to fill."

Personal impact

Preblud explains that his desire to launch INDT stems from his Denver roots, where he grew up reading the Rocky. He explains that he found it difficult to watch its demise, and that "nobody stepped up and was willing to buy the Rocky." It was this which prompted him to co-found INDT, "I just felt there was an opportunity there with part of what the future solution might look like," he clarified. Working on such a project is unlikely to be the same as working at an established paper, however. Murakami, discussing his new role, comments, "It's weird, I have been a newspaper reporter for 20 years. And now I am part-salesman, part fundraiser, part photo editor, part editor, part IT guy. And I haven't had time to do any stories."

How closures are affecting American cities

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Rocky Mountain News are two of the most high profile American newspaper closures, but there has been speculation that more could follow. Whilst the P-I is now published online, the Rocky in any official form disappeared completely. In reference to the situation Seattle now finds itself, Murakami says "The paper left a big hole in the community and nobody in the community was ever asked if that was OK. The community had no voice, in terms of this thing that happened".

"I think there's a risk at the moment and there are places where they are losing coverage."

There has been speculation in the New York Times over which American town could become the first to lose both of its newspapers, and Michael Wolff of Newser recently, and somewhat controversially, suggested that all newspapers could have disappeared in 18 months time. In terms of communities losing valued newspaper coverage, Preblud says "I think there's a risk at the moment and there are places where they are losing coverage. A vehicle like INDenverTimes hasn't been put in place to cover the losses. It's critical that we as an industry figure out what the right model is so that we don't lose the core of journalism, which starts with local coverage."

Whilst neither the Seattle PostGlobe or INDenverTimes are claiming to be a replacement for the newspapers whose demise lead to their creation, they are undoubtedly trying to help fill the gap that was left. In the future, will the situation in Denver and Seattle repeat in other towns and states in the US? If there are further newspaper closures, it is somewhat inevitable that sites such as INDT and the SPG will emerge - but can such sites provide a service to the community that is in any way comparable to that of a city paper?

On December 25 2008, Carbondale-based newspaper the Valley Journal announced that the Christmas edition would be its last. The small Colorado town paper was unable to keep financially afloat and the decision was made to cease printing.

Deprived of the town's final stand-alone newspaper, locals began to miss out on vital community information such as birth and marriage announcements as well as updates on local infrastructure developments. However, it was the belated news of a friend's death that spurred Rebecca Young, Valley Journal's original founder, to take action: "I didn't hear of his death for a couple of weeks," she said. "I was so sad I wasn't at his service."

The New York Times is due to announce the launch of two new hyperlocal news sites today, according to a draft statement obtained by paidContent.  The site content will be provided by a network of local citizen journalists overseen by a single NYT staff member and will cover five communities in New Jersey and Brooklyn.  Entitled The Local, the sites will cover all the main points of interest within and aim to attract local advertisers.  The move follows an increasing number of blogs on the publication's site, and a recent collaboration with citizen journalist site Everyblock.

Speaking to Editor & Publisher, editor of digital initiatives at the NYT Jim Schachter explained the role of the NYT staffers in charge of the sites (Tina Kelley for New Jersey, and Andy Newman for Brooklyn) is to "instigate people in their communities to do their own reporting and contribute their own creativity to the community we are trying to build online".  He explained that whilst they don't expect to see Times standard journalism gracing the sites, the addition of an NYT reporter is in order to bring good judgement, and the initiative is in order to see if there is a "new kind of journalism we can be part of."

Another hyperlcoal service set to launch is NBC's New York Nonstop; a 24 hour news channel.  Plans for the chanel were first announced last May, but after several delays it would now appear that its launch is imminent.  The channel will run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and in an email from WNBC-4's manager Michael Horowicz, staffers were warned that their pieces "should not look like trditional news pieces... if it looks like a newscast we're dead."

Source: paidContent, Editor & Publisher, News York Observer

Various ideas to overhaul the business model of newspapers have been debated in recent weeks, such as the possibility of a return to paid online content, or a non-profit endowment scheme. Both have potential, but both are long term solutions that would take some time to implement, and for the immediate crisis at hand, could government help be the answer? At the end of January French President Nicolas Sarkozy approved a 600 million euro package of measures to save the beleaguered French press. Ideas for some kind of bailout plan have been floated in the US for several months now, following those for banks and the car industry, and similar discussion has taken place in the UK. Is a similar bailout likely to happen anywhere else? Could it save the struggling industry, or is such government involvement in the media too dangerous?

The French way

The French measures announced came largely from recommendations in a three-month study into the industry's health that was released in early January. The proposals were largely based on reducing productions costs, but the study also recommended that newspapers restructure their finances and that journalists be better trained for multiple forms of media, including online. Sarkozy's speech instructed newspapers to improve the content of their articles, bring in younger readers and transform business models

Arguably the most controversial measure was the decision to give 18 year olds a year-long subscription to a newspaper of their choice. This is clearly a direct subsidy, and one which many people do not think will work. It does seem optimistic to imagine that thousands of teenagers are going to find the time in their day to sit down and read a broadsheet rather than scan news online, and then be inspired to continue such a subscription. The package also included a major increase in state expenditure to support newspaper and magazine deliveries: 70 million euro from 8 million last year. The government will double its spending on advertisements in print publications. The state will also defer some fees the publications face, and Sarkozy announced a freeze on the cost of postal distribution and a reduction in payroll taxes for newsagents. He also extended tax breaks for investors in online journalism.

France's press is among the least profitable in Europe, with circulation figures of around half those of the UK and Germany, and national newspapers suffering particularly. According to the Guardian, it is "stifled by rigid communist press unions, a lack of kiosks selling papers and a declining readership far below that of the UK or Germany." Sarkozy has promised to increase points of sale, and work to improve newspaper delivery to both kiosks and homes. Another major problem is high printing costs, as presses are controlled by communist union Le Livre. Sarkozy announced that the state is aiming to reduce printing costs by 30-40 per cent by negotiating with the union.  

Sarkozy insisted that the aid package was not an attack on press freedom, the Guardian reported. "I don't understand how anyone could doubt the legitimacy of the state in this process," he claimed, comparing the press to any other industry in need of aid, such as the automobile sector. Incidentally, the French car industry just received a 6.5 billion euro loan from the government. And the French state already gives 1.5 billion euro in direct and indirect aid to the press each year. The Guardian asserted in January that "the public's trust in the media is at an all-time low in a climate where politicians rewrite their own interviews for publication and the president's powerful business friends, from construction to arms manufacturing, own several major papers or TV stations." Which does not really sound like ideal circumstances for the government to get further involved in the media. It is too early to assess the effects of the bailout on newspapers, though it seems to have been received favourably by editors.

UK's regional focus

Another country where public trust in the media is at an all time low is the UK. Research by the Media Standards Trust revealed on 9 February that only 7% of the public trust national newspapers to behave responsibly. "Without urgent reform we believe that self-regulation of the press will become increasingly ineffective at both protecting the public and promoting good journalism and, without prompt action, there is real danger that it will become increasingly irrelevant," said Martin Moore, director of the Trust. The report calls for government intervention to ensure press accuracy and to limit intrusion on people's private lives. But would such government intervention be accompanied by financial aid?

In response to Sarkozy's announcement of the French plan, a spokesman for publisher Trinity Mirror said: "We don't believe that direct subsidies are a safe or sensible way forward. There are two easy things for the government to do. The first is to indicate that they will intervene and allow consolidation of regional newspapers on public interest grounds. The second is to return to using local newspapers for public notices and public sector job advertising." Many papers have called for changes to competition regulations in the local and regional sectors to more easily facilitate mergers, and the UK's Office of Fair Trading has confirmed it is to launch a full consultation on the local media ownership regime next month. Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger went a step further and raised the question of public subsidies for newspapers in November 2008, arguing that as broadcasters compete for government funding, why shouldn't local newspapers too? "There has never been less certainty about the future of local news in this country," he said. Roy Greenslade, amongst others, criticised this view, saying that information should not all be funded "through the mechanism of the state."

American opposition

Across the pond in the US, Connecticut legislators sparked debate at the end of 2008 by petitioning the state government to help local papers whose publisher Journal Register said it could not afford to keep them open any more. Journal Register has been forced to close 'dozens' of newspapers in recent months. Connecticut's Department of Economic and Community Development is offering tax breaks, training funds, financing opportunities and other incentives for publishers, but not cash. According to economic development commissioner Joan McDonald, Connecticut does not see trying to find a buyer and offering tax breaks as exerting influence on the press. In January, the publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News were in discussions with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell about getting the two largest state employee pension funds to help bail out the papers.

But there has been considerable opposition to any such notion, as could be expected in a country which prides itself on its free market attitude. The Wall Street Journal asserted that a newspaper bailout was "the worst bailout idea so far," and stressed that "independent journalism is valuable, but only if it is truly independent."  Editor & Publisher editors warned that although it could be tempting to seek government assistance, "Uncle Sam's purse comes with lots of strings attached." Paul Janensch, a journalism professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, and a former reporter and editor, commented "you can't expect a watchdog to bite the hand that feeds it."

There is already some unobtrusive government assistance to American newspapers, for example the US Postal Service has offered discounted postage rates. Also, several cities have papers running under Joint Operating Agreements, created following the congressional Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970 to keep competing urban dailies viable despite circulation declines.

Can a bailout be justified?

It is possible that other European countries will follow the French example, but an American bailout seems to be extremely unlikely. The British people are used to the idea of public funding for news, given the prevalence of the BBC, so maybe they would be more open to the idea of more government subsidies. But it could also be argued that given the major presence of the BBC, there is enough government involvement in news already.

It is undeniable that as one of the main roles of the press in a democracy is to criticise the government, it must remain entirely free of any government influence, and there is always the risk that government support could lead to influence. The idea of the press relying on the government to any extent is extremely unappealing to many people. But another valid point is that given the importance to any democracy of an active press, it is the government's duty to support the press in time of need.

Making sure that press friendly laws are in place, rather than offering a cash injection, is probably as far as the government should go, in 'normal' circumstances. But perhaps given the current problems plaguing the industry, some limited, short-term government assistance could be justified, to help papers make the necessary adjustments to working online, until an appropriate business model can be found, or until the economy starts to recover. In any kind of bailout, help should be given in such a way where there would be no risk that it could be considered as an attempt to influence. It would be essential to ensure that any help offered to newspapers was offered country-wide, and that it did not give any papers advantages over others. And government support should not be a substitute for innovation, and should not stifle entrepreneurship.

To mark the relaunch of the Editors Weblog, the World Editors Forum is running a special series entitled "Doing More with Less." The series highlights major trends that editors-in-chief are using to steer their newsrooms through the difficult economic climate. The seventh in the series takes a look at non-profit investigative journalism site VoiceOfSanDiego.org.

As newspapers make cuts to survive and concentrate their efforts, one of the first areas to suffer is the time- and resources- consuming field of investigative journalism. And that is where the VoiceOfSanDiego.org has stepped in; a non-profit, online-only publication focussing on quality investigative reporting for the San Diego area. The Editors Weblog spoke to Executive Editor Andrew Donahue and housing and economy reporter Kelly Bennett about their mission.

The Gap

"If there is one storyline that sums up why we exist, it is because investigative journalism on a very local level isn't being done." Andrew Donohue was clear about the role of VOSD: to fill the gaping hole in "in-depth analytical accountability journalism, the public service arm of a newspaper," that has emerged in recent years in other communities as well as in San Diego.
Donohue believes that "so many newspapers are cutting back to such extreme levels that there is no way that they are getting the investigative news that they deserve and need." The problem is most severe in American cities, where for many years there has been just one newspaper with something of a monopoly on providing information, so if that paper stops launching investigations, then who will take its place? Investigative journalism has a vital role to play in local societies, exposing wrongs and pushing for change. Bennett pointed out another important element to consider: its value as a deterrent against potential corruption. She sees this as a safeguard for society, it is about "developing that reputation that there are people looking, sending a message to people in power."

"If there is one storyline that sums up why we exist, it is because investigative journalism on a very local level isn't being done." 

Balancing site readability and impact

VOSD reporters are assigned to specific beats, a concept borrowed from traditional publications. Donohue explained that the VOSD journalists were constantly trying to balance the two crucial elements of their job: to keep the website lively and updated, but also to commit time to investigative reporting that can have a significant impact. Such reporting is undoubtedly time intensive if it is to be done thoroughly, which it is at VOSD. Staff are encouraged to meet with any relevant sources and to always do public records requests and fight "really hard" for documents. Bennett explained that the very nature of investigative journalism means that you never really know how a project is going to turn out, so it can be difficult to allocate appropriate resources.

Inspirational reporting

Donohue pointed out one major project, 'Redevelopment gone wrong' which has been an inspiration to him and his staff.  VOSD launched three different areas of investigation into public agency the Southeastern Economic Development Corp., and over the course of a number of years "exposed a wide range of conflicts of interest, fraud and other sorts of misbehaviour." The publication's work has led to FBI and criminal federal grand jury investigation, the board of the agency has been completely revamped and the president has been forced to resign. Donohue is proud of the depth of coverage produced, of VOSD's determination to keep sticking with the story, and of course of the impact. "It can be very disheartening and very frustrating if you spend 6 months on a project and nothing actually changes," he explained. So "watching the impact of this story has been inspiring for us as journalists."

Day-to-day flexibility

VOSD has a more flexible working environment than many traditional publications.  Donohue explained that as long as reporters are "producing the quality of journalism that we require," they are free to work from the office or at home, and can choose their hours.  They have also tried to "eliminate the idea of deadlines altogether," explained Donohue: stories go up on the site when they are ready. Reporters are always free to propose their own stories, they are not necessarily assigned by editors. "We are firm believers in the idea that ideas bubble up from reporters' beats," added Donohue. "I would be a fool if I thought that I knew more than my reporters about their beats"

Staff: traditional experience and new blood

VOSD's eleven staff are a mixture of experienced journalists who have worked in newspapers for many years, and people fresh out of college who have never reported full time before.  Donohue explained that both "offer really valuable perspectives," although those who had been at traditional newspapers longer found it harder to adapt to work at VOSD.  "It's fascinating to watch" the process, Donohue commented. Bennett described how staff often discuss the "rules" of traditional newspapers and decide which ones they should follow.

Non-profit allows for total focus on story impact

Both Donohue and Bennett were very positive about the advantages offered by VOSD's non-profit status. Most crucial is the simple fact that they do not have to make anyone any money; rather just make enough to support the organisation.  This means, as Donohue explained, that "you measure success differently." Papers which are desperately seeking every hit they can get on their website risk cheapening their news, or moving away from their core focus. "We know what we could put on our site to get more hits," stressed Donohue, "but it would lessen the impact of our stories." The unique aspect of a non-profit, Donohue explained, is that "ultimately our success is judged by the impact of our stories: What have our stories done?" And this impact, evidently, is what is most important to investigative journalism. Bennett added that for her, "there has been some major value in being able to tell people that you are writing the story independently. For me the non-profit, independent aspect of VOSD has been part of the justification for reporting the way I do."

"Ultimately as non-profit our success is judged by the impact of our stories: What have our stories done?"

Donor money does not buy influence

One potential problem with privately funded non-profits is that those who fund them could try to influence the news that comes out of them.  Donohue was clear that this has not been a problem at VOSD. "We have made it very clear that your money does not buy you influence," he clarified. "We draw the lines, and as long as we draw them clearly and boldly then there aren't problems." He explained that he himself had been sceptical of donors' motives when he first started working with VOSD, but that he had quickly come to understand that investigative journalism at its heart is a "public service institution," and that many funders were large philanthropic organisations who frequently give grants to all sorts of organisations. A recent donor was the Knight Foundation; others are local foundations that work on quality of life issues, others are "prominent citizens," or members of the community who give smaller amounts. A total of 750 people have given money.  

Multimedia and reader interaction

One of the great advantages of being online-only is the potential for multimedia. As Bennett pointed out, if a newspaper promotes a multimedia package to accompany a story, there will be so many steps to take to actually access it that few readers will, while as online, it is right there.  She accompanies some stories with video, audio or slideshows when she feels it would add to them.  Her monthly feature "People at work," which looks at a San Diego resident through the lens of their job, often includes a multimedia feature.  Another benefit of working online is the possibility to interact with readers.  VOSD allows comments on its opinion pieces and opinion blogs, but not on news stories or news blogs, as Donohue believes that they should "let the news stand by itself," and they do not have sufficient resources to carry out the necessary moderation of the comments. Reporters also interact in different ways with their audience, using blog postings to solicit thoughts, ideas and comments for stories, which Donohue described as "a great source of information." A regular feature called 'The People's Reporter' is very popular. Readers can send in tips and questions and a reporter will spend a day responding on a blog, and "it has led to great discussion and some more long-term stories, Donohue explained.

Competing with traditional media?

Donohue described VOSD's relationship with local paper the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was adamant that VOSD is more than just an alternative voice to supplement the Tribune's coverage, but also not a direct competitor overall. However within VOSD's chosen field of quality of life issues, the site does compete: "we always want to have the best stories and have them first." And Donohue hopes that the people of San Diego benefit from this lack of monopoly, as "the more competition there is in the media, the better it is for everybody and the better the community is served."

Is this the future for local news?  

VOSD's coverage is firmly local, and focussed very much on quality of life issues. Donohue believes that the model works, and plans to continue along the same lines, although he sees it as one of many that will be tried in upcoming years. The non-profit model may well have to be used more: "at least until news orgs find a way to make this thing work financially, it will have to be done philanthropically." He sees a future in which publications become more specialised, and in which people look to many different sources for different types of news. Most crucial is the fact that people try to come up with new ideas and carry them out, as "the thing that has been missing from journalism and the thing that has got us to this point is a lack of innovation and lack of entrepreneurial spirit."

"One thing we've learnt is that the gap we were created to fill keeps just keeps getting bigger"

And the future for VOSD?

For VOSD, Donohue hopes to grow, and eventually become "a very robust news organization, that serves almost as the metro section of a what a daily paper used to be." Maybe it will not become huge in terms of numbers, as Donohue is aware that the current model may not necessarily support a much larger staff, and "there is something to be said for being a quick, lean and efficient organisation." But as "one thing we've learnt is that the gap we were created to fill keeps just keeps getting bigger," VOSD will strive to keep up with filling that gap, and keep looking for more gaps that the traditional media is leaving behind. It may well not be a model that works everywhere, but VOSD's commitment and success show that it can work, and should be taken seriously by communities whose newspapers have lost their public service arm.

To mark the relaunch of the Editors Weblog, the World Editors Forum is running a special series entitled "Doing More with Less." The series highlights major trends that editors-in-chief are using to steer their newsrooms through the difficult economic climate. The fourth of the series takes a look at the hugely successful online-only news site, the Huffington Post.

The Huffington Post was a runaway success in 2008; with 8 million readers during the US election campaign, it is now the most 'linked-to' blog on the Web and is valued at up to $200million. It only employs around 50 staff, just a handful of which are editorial. To do so much with so little, is an impressive feat indeed. The Editors Weblog spoke to HuffPost's Founding Editor Roy Sekoff, and National Editor Nico Pitney, to examine the crucial elements that contribute to its success and look at how it plans to maintain that success post-elections.

HUFFING AND PUFFING TOWARDS SUCCESS

Content
To explain HuffPost's huge popularity, Sekoff pointed to the mix of different content you can get on the site. "It's a very vital and dynamic blend of breaking news, aggregated news and real-time commentary," meaning that you can find out the information you want and immediately see what people have been saying about it. It offers a bit of everything, both "esoteric and pedestrian," And a crucial factor is the mix of people who write on the site, from Hillary Clinton to Larry David to Arianna Huffington herself. Sekoff explained that it is "not just a certain kind of writer. You could get an actor, an architect and a politician all weighing in on the same issue."

Speed
The speed at which news can be reported in an online model is invaluable for HuffPost's success and for the news industry today. "The Internet has enabled us to get what we want, when and how we want it," Sekoff declared, "and it turns out they want it fast." He described the moment when the benefits of online really hit home in HuffPost's early days. It was the day of the July 2005 London bombings and HuffPost had been covering the story from the early hours of the morning, with bloggers sending in information and pictures from London. Then the morning New York Times appeared, with London on the front page but topped with the wrong headline: about the city hosting the 2012 Olympics. "It literally was yesterday's news," Sekoff stressed. Pitney was enthusiastic about how HuffPost can provide "instantaneous coverage about what's happening," and can immediately try to get comments from people involved in the story.

Interconnectedness
The HuffPost team have also made a considerable effort to make the whole site as appealing and user-friendly as possible, as while it was originally envisaged that readers would purposefully come to the home page and then move around the site, now many people end up landing on other pages through links from searches or social media sites. Sekoff explained that they had been "working to make each landing page full of as much content as possible," with images, related stories, or recommendations for further reading, "to make much content intuitively available for people who are interested in certain topics." There is extensive "interconnectedness" between elements of the site, which both reduces the chances of readers missing things in the vast array of stories available, and makes the site more 'sticky,' increasing traffic.

Links
Sekoff was confident that the HuffPost was a financially sustainable endeavour. Its revenue largely comes from advertising, and this is based on its high traffic as a result of being the most linked-to blog on the Web. "It has become a link-based economy. You are not being paid in dollars any more for your piece, but rather you are being paid in traffic." So from a financial standpoint, the main focus is simply to get good content onto the site, which will encourage people to link to it, increase traffic and then generate more advertising revenue. The HuffPost does syndicate some of its content but Sekoff stressed that this was not an element of the site's business model.

"It has become a link-based economy. You are not being paid in dollars any more for your piece, but rather you are being paid in traffic."

Free contributions
HuffPost has invited over 2000 people to be part of its group blog. These successful, influential leaders in their fields are not paid but many still regularly offer their insight and comments to the virtual pages of HuffPost. So in terms of getting good readable content onto the site, this is a very cost effective way to do it. Sekoff explained why he thinks so many people are willing to write for the site: "we offer our bloggers a tremendous platform." The most obvious reason is simply the volume of readership HuffPost can offer: "on the HuffPost, stuff gets read." Very few people receive more than a few thousand readers on their individual blogs, while on HuffPost they can get millions. The "engaged readership" is a related factor, Sekoff believes. "People are always struck by how immediate the response is and how reasoned and interesting the comment section can be."

Another simple but important reason people like to blog for the HuffPost is the lack of commitment and deadlines. "People are free to write what they want when they want," Sekoff clarified, "so it's great for people who have something to say but don't have time to maintain their own blog." As most of the people who blog for HuffPost do other things - and in fact it is these other things that they do that make them so interesting - they appreciate the freedom to be able to speak out when they want to but have no obligation. "Nobody is carrying the weight themselves," he added, one of the advantages of having so many contributors.

Citizen reporters
HuffPost has also been embracing the free resource of citizen journalism and is confident of its potential. During the campaign the Off the Bus initiative, in conjunction with pro-am journalism venture New Assignment, used readers as reporters and was very successful. It was actually used to break stories, such as the 'Bitter Gate' scandal, and Sekoff described how readers continue to be excited about contributing to the site. In a project called 'Blogging the Meltdown,' people recount how the economic breakdown is affecting their communities, "putting flesh and blood on the statistics." He believes that tapping into the "storehouse of information and knowledge" provided by readers could be the future of much journalism.


PERFECTING POST-ELECTION PLANS

After its tremendous success during the election campaign, HuffPost is making plans for the future. Sekoff said that main areas of focus now are the presidential transition and the world economic downturn, and Pitney explained that much of the original reporting the Washington team are doing now is centred around the bailout plan. However, the site has already diversified from its original political focus and plans to continue doing so. A $25 million funding injection from Oak Investment Partners was announced in December last year and HuffPost has been looking at how to spend it.

One major area of expansion is localizing - HuffPost Chicago began in August 2008 and is described by site founder Arianna Huffington, as "part local news source, part resource guide, part virtual soap box." It includes a roundup of local services. San Francisco is coming next. A world section, in partnership with new international news service GlobalPost was recently launched. HuffPost has plans to create an investigative journalism fund, which will fund both daily breaking scoops and longer pieces, according to Sekoff, in an effort to make sure that this vital aspect of reporting is not lost due to a financial downturn. HuffPost will hire editors, but most of the writing will be done by freelancers, Pitney explained. He added that they will try to take advantage of the skills of some of the "great journalists" who are having trouble finding work due to the current financial situation in the newspaper world.
 
Although aggregation still very much forms the basis of the news reported on the site, HuffPost's original reporting team is expanding, according to Pitney, who added that a full time congressional reporter had just been hired. There are no photographers or videographers, but all reporters have been issued with a Kite phone, allowing them to take short videos at events which "almost instantly upload to an 'embed-able' video player online."

TRUMPING TRADITIONAL MEDIA?

Arianna Huffington insisted in an interview with Iwantmedia that HuffPost is not contributing to the demise of US daily newspapers in any way. Sekoff agreed, and Pitney stressed that newspaper journalists "are vital to what we do, and hopefully we are helping their work in the sense that we send them lots of readers, and we try to highlight their best work." Sekoff mentioned that he foresees a "hybrid future" for media operations, in which people will still get their information in a variety of ways.

"Newspaper journalists are vital to what we do, and hopefully we are helping their work in the sense that we send them lots of readers, and we try to highlight their best work." 

HuffPost is just one way in that variety. It has come up with a ground-breaking formula that involves minimum expenditure but provides maximum coverage: up to date, comprehensive aggregation combined with insight from famous names and readers, all of which is obtained for free. And although reader numbers have fallen from their peak during the US election campaign, what HuffPost offers is still original and effective enough to make its continued success very likely. Its expansion into local sites could be particularly popular considering the well-documented troubles of US metropolitan newspapers, and as investigative journalism is cut at newspapers, this could be area in which HuffPost excels. One potential threat comes from the fact that more and more newspaper websites are offering aggregation services themselves, But being first off the mark, HuffPost has a significant headstart.

WNBC launched a new website, www.nbcnewyork.com this week.  The website is designed to provide local content for New Yorkers.  

It will provide news, information, lifestyle programming, mobile services and a 24-hour news and information channel.  The site will combine content from blogs, online services, print publication and WNBC.

Indonesian media, property, infrastructure and banking tycoon James Riady is to shortly launch a new daily newspaper in Indonesia, the Jakarta Globe. The new newspape for Indonesia  was reported on back in August, but it has emerged that it will hit the market soon.

News Corporation executive Lachlan Murdoch - son of Rupert Murdoch - is also reportedly taking an interest and looking at other media investments in Indonesia with Riady.

The 48-page, full-colour English-language broadsheet newspaper will initially just be distributed in large Indonesian cities and Singapore, with a print run of "over 50,000", according to launch editor David Plott. Plott is a former editor-in-chief of the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review.

Plott says, "Indonesia's a little like India, in the sense that it's a market where print publications are still quite profitable and there's still quite a lot of growth potential; in terms of advertising it's a $US3 billion a year market."

The competition for the new player in the market will be the Jakarta Post, an English-language daily with circulation of 18,000 copies. It will also have an online version; however, issues surround the name jakartaglobe.com, as a local news aggregator already operates under the name.

There have been significant challenges for the newspaper with retraining staff, as "Newspapers aren't what they used to be. You can't survive by just reporting what happened, particularly in Indonesia, where things aren't always what they appear to be, and what's actually going on behind events is not clear to anyone except insiders."

Source: The Australian via IFRA Executive News Service

Mobile technology seems to be gaining popularity in Flanders after the launch of the iPhone as some newspapers began to offer mobile services, reported Dorien Aerts from the Online Journalism Blog.

De Standaard's mobile site, which was launched on June 16, has news, weather forecast and updated traffic information. The paper was also the first to introduce blogging to its site.

De Tijd is finance-oriented, providing mobile users with daily news, currency information and the users own "investment wallet".     

Local papers Het Belang van Limburg and Gazet van Antwerpen have mobile sites offering both national, international, sports, cultural and society news.

Aerts pointed out that Flemish papers like Het Laatste Niews, De Morgen and Het Nieuwsblad have not yet launched mobile sites. He also mentioned that so far no Flemish papers have used mobile widgets or localization and personalization functions.

Source: Online Journalism Blog through IFRA Executive News Service

France: Le Figaro launches iPhone site
US: NYT launches iPhone application
AP launches native iPhone application
IHT.com launches iPhone-optimized site

The Huffington Post is expanding its operations by providing local news coverage in several U.S. cities. The popular political blog will launch its first local site in Chicago, founder Arianna Huffington said, and will aggregate news from a variety of local sources.

"We are aspiring to be a newspaper in that we want to be covering all news, not just the political blogging the way we began," said Huffington.

The Huffington Post's move toward local news is a major step forward for the blog as it grows into its new role as a news provider. Thanks to a significant boost in funding over the past two years, the Post has become more than a traditional blog, hiring BBC reporter Elinor Shields as managing editor, and offering new video services.

"[Hiring reporters] has only been good for us," Huffington said. "They have been incredible traffic generators and thanks to our reporters, we have been linked to a lot by the mainstream media."

Source: The Guardian

India's new financial daily, Mint, was launched in February last year and since then has expanded from 80,000 to 122,000 copies (see our previous interview with its editor here). As the Financial Times readies an Indian edition, it is unknown as to how it will be accepted in the market.

In an interview with famed newspaper designer Dr. Mario Garcia, Mint's editor, Raju Narisetti, said he was uncertain whether "there is real room for more than a couple of business dailies" and that there is "a bubble quality" to the "segment" issue.

According to Narisetti, there has been growth in business media such as financial channels and dailies. However, how the FT/TV18 paper will be accepted is not yet evident. There is a question of time and appetite with regard to readers.

Until recently, the FT has been excluded from India "thanks to a brazen misappropriation of its brand." Narisetti said, "If the FT/TV18 paper can raise the bar on Indian business journalism and also bring in strong ethics and journalistic standards, it would be a good addition to Mint."

Narisetti mentioned that non-business newspapers like the Hindustan Times and DNA are investing the most in business coverage. Other local newspapers have not shown the incentive to bring forth a "sizable increase in resources being devoted" for it.

Narisetti is also a World Editors Forum Board member.

Source: www.garciamedia.com through IFRA Executive News Service

Fox Interactive Media, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., has launched a social media weather site, Mashable.com's Paul Glazowski reports. FOX Weather Beta is intended to provide users with a comprehensive weather service, offering both global and hyperlocal weather news.

The site's main feature is a prominently displayed interactive map powered by Google Maps. The site also offers users social media tools, such as blogs, forums, and photo-sharing communities.

But will this new take on an old service stick? Glazowski says FOX Weather Beta may be fighting an "uphill battle."

"The site's community structure is somewhat generic and unappealing visually, and some parts...need extra attention," he said.

For a site aiming to reinvent 21st century weather services, FOX Weather Beta's impressive map service, Glazowski says, could be self-defeating, overshadowing the site's social media innovations.

"The map itself operates very well. So well, in fact, that you tend almost to ignore the rest," he said.

Source: Mashable.com through I Want Media

The Arab Media Group is relaunching its Al Bayan newspaper, the oldest Arabic daily newspaper in the UAE.

Changes include a new color layour, daily supplement, and two weekly supplements.

The 'Five Senses' daily supplement will carry local and global entertainment news. The weekly Friday supplement, 'Maraya', will carry news and editorial opinions on politics. The Sunday supplement, 'Masarat', will cover local and international cultural affairs.

"The relaunch comes in response to the evolution witnessed in all sectors of UAE society, as well as the unique combination of multiple cultures in the country. We recognized the need for a daily newspaper that is capable of understanding the needs of such a diverse audience," said Abdullatif Al Sayegh, CEO of AMG.

The goal of the relaunch is for Al Bayan to extent outside of the UAE and establish itself as an outlet for the region.

Source: AME Info through IFRA Executive News Service

The Associated Press, along with more than 100 of its member newspapers, is launching a mobile news service for Apple's iPhone.

The service will offer local news from participating member papers. National and international content will be provided by AP feeds.  

See our sister blog SFN for the full story.

Sources: Yahoo! News through I Want Media, Apple.com (picture)

David Hiller, publisher, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Times, talks the paper's future to Forbes.com.

Hiller assures that the LA Times, being one of the few U.S. papers left with a strong number of foreign correspondents, will continue "to keep a strong foreign report," and over time, "gauge what size should it be, where those correspondents are allocated, and also look at how we do collaborate with, for example, our sister paper the Chicago Tribune."

He says that there may be a chance in eliminating overlap between the two staffs to cut costs while still maintaining quality coverage.

Three areas that are in the most need of change are:
1. Continuing to grow and build Internet business. They just launched an online entertainment product, The Guide, that's built on a platform that allows for hyper-local news and user-generated content.

2. Finishing the integration of the print and online operations. "You're always going to have specialists, people who do different things," says Hiller. "[But] particularly in this environment, we need to make sure there's no redundancy, that all the players can write for both print and online and editors can edit for both, etc., etc."

3. Continuing the redesign or re-imagining of the main print newspaper. In the 24- hour continuous news cycle, the LA Times' mantra is to break news online and do something else in print.

As for the synchronization between the newsroom and the business side of the paper, Hiller says that they are "getting there."

"Life is a journey. I think we make headway every day," he concludes.

Source: Forbes.com through IFRA Executive News Service

The Associated Press has announced plans to launch an advertising-supported mobile news network and to reduce its rates for American newspaper clients, after holding the rate steady for the past two years.

Mobile News Network, which will be organized by ZIP codes, will launch this summer. It will deliver local from participating newspapers and national and international news and photos from AP to advanced cell phones such as the iPhone. A news videos service is in the works.

The move comes in response to increased economic woes in the U.S. newspaper industry. It is predicted that members will save approximately $14m (£7.1m). The AP had previously proposed a rate restructuring that stood to save papers about $5.9 million, but decided to increase savings, reports Follow the Media.

The price cut may also serve to pacify certain member papers who had voiced protests about, among other issues, the rate restructuring plan (go here, here, and here for a look at current tensions between AP and its members). 

"We have a very simple message for you today. We hear you. We understand that these are both difficult and historic times for our industry," said Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews and AP chairman, at the time of AP members' annual meeting.

Sources: European Journalism Centre, Follow the Media through MediaGuardian

Local Edition, launched last year by former magazine journalist Clare White, is an ultra-local newspaper, filling in a void left by the mainstream press.

There was very little information on the area of Stoke, according the White, so she started the paper, which comes out every two weeks, in hopes of addressing that.

"I got into this because I didn't want to work in the mainstream press but did want to work locally. You don't have as much freedom on bigger papers," she said.

White is her only staff member, working as reporter, sub-editor, business manager, and everything else. Freelancers, sports reporters, photographers, and about 20 volunteer contributors help her out, and advertisers help out with design in exchange for cheaper advertising space. The paper's success warrants a full-time reporter in the near future.

White said, "It's been really well received. It has boosted awareness of this area and I think it has encouraged people to get stories out to the media, just because we're taking an interest in the area."

Source: Holdthefrontpage.co.uk (photo) through IFRA Executive News Service

At the beginning of March, Fairfax Media, publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Australia, unveiled two video studios in its new Sydney headquarters. Fairfax hired some broadcast consultants to help with the construction, which lasted about six months (with a previous four months of planning). Ian Vaile, Director of Fairfax Digital Productions, explained why newspapers shouldn't focus on TV-type bulletins, how journalists can manage the extra workload, and why newspaper video is financially viable.

The top floor studio is smaller, integrated within the Herald's newsroom. It is equipped with broadcast-quality HD cameras and 2-3 people can be on camera at once.

A larger studio on the downfloor, which can fit a car, was designed to be used by all Fairfax Media outlets. It is equipped with six editing suites with Final Cut Pro, and Fairfax has installed a fiber optic cable to enable quick transfers: all videos shot in the studio are centralized in a database which is made available to the various platforms.

The new building for The Age in Melbourne, which is to be ready towards the end of 2009, will also be equipped with two similar studios.

For Ian Vaile, Director of Fairfax Digital Productions, Fairfax and its newspapers can be at an advantage for online video, compared to broadcast TV professionals. Because they are not tied to a traditional broadcast news schedule, they can often bring breaking news online faster.

They can also benefit from the newspapers' core coverage, by using a "short video story associated to a much more in-depth newspaper story." In other cases, a news video can be the main story, if it has more impact or is more illustrative than a text report.

Fairfax's video and digital production team counts 18 staffers, 10 of whom are dedicated to news video. Each major city (each major newspaper newsroom) counts two or three videojournalists, one or two staff supporters and a local multimedia editor. Fairfax Digital news sites have been drawing about 6.5 million unique users monthly, with up to 3.4 million monthly video views, delivering video to over 800,000 unique browsers.

What type of video content works? Not TV news bulletins

Fairfax produces two main types of video content:
- video news reports, short and local
- everything else that can't be considered 'news', which consists mostly of sports, panel shows, thematic reports...

Fairfax's video content runs along the spectrum of newspaper video offerings, whether it's in-house studio footage, a TV review program with occasional guests, punctual shows focused on sports events, local news reports shot by specialized videojournalists or Fairfax journalists, or one-minute interviews with journalists about a topic in their field of expertise.

However, Vaile and Fairfax have already experimented with online video and TV-type content (see similar lessons from Le Télégramme) and have a clear view of the type of content that works. Vaile's words speak for themselves:

"The studios will make it much faster to turn around news from the newsroom. We are unlikely to do typical TV news bulletins for some time because they don't work online."

"The typical TV short bulletin didn't work online. That's because online people can choose to watch the stories they're interested in and don't want to watch the stories they're not interested in. The normal linear TV news bulletin fails online."

Even for typical broadcast channels, such as ABC in Australia, where Vaile previously worked, online TV-type news reports weren't successful online, "although they worked very well on mobile phones," because "the navigation on mobile hardware is so much more difficult" than online, so "people are much more willing to adopt a linear viewing platform."

"So it will be some time before we go to making digital TV news bulletins again."

Fairfax will try other online video alternatives, "the kinds of things which use newspaper journalists who are specialists in a particular area and have very high credibility," to produce specific reports.

Do multimedia journalists work more? No, if workflows change

As mentioned above, under Fairfax's integrated approach, local news video reports could potentially be shot by Vaile's digital production team, or by a regular reporter, or by a combination of both. In some cases, the reporter will simply take a few minutes to walk to the studio and provide some comment. In others, the text reporter will be expected to shoot video, perhaps even edit it himself (this year Fairfax is making available in every newsroom a couple Canon Tx-1 cameras, a hybrid between a still and video camera, which cost about 400-500$, for reporters to take while on the ground).

Does this mean more work journalists?

"That's a problem that has yet to be fully resolved," Vaile said, admitting that "inevitably it's more work and / or different work to what they have been doing."

For Vaile, management must make "space in their working day for them to do this work without it being on top of what they have to do already."

"Working as a cross-media journalist means that you are expected to work in many different platforms, on the paper, for online, potentially for radio or for video, but you clearly can't do all those in addition to everything else."
"The working day has to be planned bearing in mind that each of these things takes time and precludes you doing something else. Because this is all new it's a balance that has yet to be fully worked out."

In some cases, the idea of multi-skilled journalists can also be counter-productive. For some aspects of video production, such as editing, it can be much more efficient to have specialists rather than waste hours of reporters' time.

Audience and business: is video viable?

The construction of the studios was "a very significant investment," in the range of "several million dollars," said Vaile.

Traffic to Fairfax Digital news sites (mainly those of The Age, Brisbane Times and Sydney Morning Herald) have been averaging about 6.5 million unique browsers and 214 million page views monthly. In contrast, there have been roughly only 3.4 million monthly video downloads, for over 800,000 unique video browsers (so roughly 12-13% of the total audience watches video, about 4-5 times monthly on average).

About 50% of video traffic goes to news items, while 'the rest' draws the other half. Interestingly though, Fairfax is attracting significantly more advertising revenues for segments within 'the rest', as advertisers are more interested in a less scattered, more targeted audience, such as for sports.

High traffic goes to news, high value advertising goes to the rest, according to Vaile.

Ads consists mostly of display advertising, pre-roll ads, as well as sponsorships for shows, However, sponsors "have no say in the editorial content in the programs," said Vaile, following standard editorial independence practices of newspapers - and quite unlike TV. In 2008, major advertisers are starting to flock towards online video, such as LandRover which will sponsor a 28-part travel program that launches at the end of March.

Future of newspaper online video: HD, streaming, tapping the TV market

In the future, "we are ready to go broadcast in HD, should we need to do that," said Vaile. "There's no question that at some stage in the near future we'll be delivering something in HD format, whether it's podcasts or products going into a very high bandwidth environment."

Vaile also believes "very much" in the future of live video streaming. Fairfax has already had a few successful experiments with live streaming, including coverage of a ship that ran aground last June thanks to cameras from the local surf patrol boat, as well as live streaming from the victory speeches of last November's federal elections in Australia. Fairfax has equipped a few of its reporters with 3G kits, which enable live video wireless streaming.

But considering the significant investments and costs of newspaper video online and badnwidth, is the current business model viable?

"Yes, definitely," said Vaile, although "we're at the very beginning of seeing the benefits of a business model which is based on display advertising around online video."

Although Fairfax doesn't have the same resources or content as a TV network, many traditional broadcasters aren't sure how to approach online video, and many traditional TV media buyers are hesitant to buy into the much smaller online audiences. So Fairfax Digital's longer term goal is to eventually tap into some of TV's advertising budget, both in news and non-news areas.

"The intention is that by providing a comprehensive video news service during the day, we will remove a share of the people who watch broadcast news bulletins at night."

Source: Ian Vaile, Director Fairfax Digital Productions

US' largest Hispanic newspaper group, ImpreMedia, is launching a single and centralized digital platform for its Spanish-language papers.

"We want 10% of our total advertising to be from online by the end of 2009," said Arturo Duran, CEO of ImpreMedia Digital, mentioning that the group's online revenue is still "very small and local."

The new portal, Impre.com, is currently in beta testing and will be officially launched next month.

Until now, according to Advertising Age, "ImpreMedia's web effort has been a hodgepodge of individual sites" with (very) basic features.

Unlike many dailies in the US, ImpreMedia has fared successfully in print in recent years, claiming to reach 11 million adults monthly through its print and online platforms, including 2.2 million unique visitors online.

With the emergence of online news, Duran pointed out that ImpreMedia's target readers can go straight to the websites of major newspapers from Hispanic countries. So the challenge for ImpreMedia publications is to do more than offer a Spanish-language paper, and provide local coverage from a Hispanic point of view.

"It's not about language anymore," Duran said. "It's about the Hispanic perspective."

Source: Advertising Age through IFRA Executive News Service

Northcliffe Media, through its subsidiary Gloucestershire Media Group, launched today a weekly news and property magazine for Stroud, Gloucestershire.
 
The 64-page publication, Stroud Life, is distributed free with local weekly paper The Citizen and features news, comment, sport, and property content.

Stroud Life also has its own section on Thisisgloucestershire website, part of Northcliffe's ThisIs brand, which recently announced plans to incorporate geo-tagging on its member websites.

Source: Press Gazette through IFRA Executive News Service 

Last week, celebrating its 150th birthday, The Birmingham Post launched a new website and moved into a Web-first strategy. The Post is currently leading bold blogging and citizen journalism initiatives.

The site now carries the paper's live breaking news, as well as comment and analysis from the paper's correspondents.

Most interestingly though, the Post has recruited an army of external bloggers to provide content about arts, industry and sports. The site has developed industry-specific channels that cover particular areas such as banking and the automotive industry. Dedicated bloggers will cover those areas.

"Just one of the many developments I am particularly proud of is our panel of expert bloggers who will be commenting on a diverse array of subjects," said Post editor Marc Reeves.

"Without doubt this stands as a highbrow development in terms of user-generated content and user-interaction.

The Birmingham Post successfully established ties with its readers, by soliciting the local online blogging community from the very start of the website construction process.

At the end of January, other Trinity Mirror title Birmingham Mail also relaunched its site with emphasis on user content. This is part of a Trinity-wide strategy to develop community newspaper sites.

Source: Press Gazette through IFRA Executive News Service