Instead of worrying about competing with bloggers, BostonNOW, which will launch later this month, has chosen to offer them plentiful space on the editorial pages of the paper, not to mention 150 to 200 word blurbs on every page, for every topic. As long as what bloggers write meets the editors’ definition of “good”, they can be published in the paper. Bloggers will initially work for free, but over time the paper will develop a model for compensation.

BostonNOW will focus its small paid staff on producing quality local news.

Not only will the paper open its pages, but its office doors as well. Taking the concept of transparency to the extreme, editors John Wilpers and Regina O’Brien are planning to live-webcast their editorial meetings and allow anyone with AOL Instant Messenger to offer input.

The paper, says Wilpers, will in fact be a “billboard for the website,” which will house more in-depth local stories with multimedia components. The website is also, of course, where the blogging for the next day’s paper will take place. Editors will search the site in the early morning for items to use in the day’s paper.

BostonNOW is funded by an Icelandic company, Dagsbrun, that hopes to have NOW papers in eight to ten different cities in two years, with every one built from the bottom-up.

“The old model is too exclusive,” says Wilpers. “It doesn’t represent the community. There’s no content that’s relevant to many readers. They still think with that gatekeeper model for what belongs and what doesn’t. We don’t agree. We’re opening up the floodgates. Look out!”

Source: Boston’s Weekly Dig through Media Bistro