“Ultra-local is definitely the way to go. If you promise ultra-local, you've got to be able to deliver it,” Harrison says. “The number of journalists we have [60] is huge compared with many other regional papers - but, even with that many, we can't deliver ultra-local news all the time. To do it, we're going to need another 500 reporters - we can't take them on, they're going to need to be citizen journalists.”

But where is all this ultra-local content going? For now, Harrison thinks, the Internet isn’t taking away much print circulation, but rather is adding a different, younger audience. However, a new era is coming.

"When the comet struck the earth and the dinosaurs were wiped out, the things that survived were the ants and the tiny insects,” says Harrison. “The comet has now hit the earth and it's the smaller, micro-local news that's going to survive and we're going to grow into the next generation of news delivery, which could be online.”

Right now, the Express and Star site produces two to three video segments a day, but “we've found the thing that gets most is hard news stuff,” says Harrison. “Crashes, murders, any footage sent in by readers on cellphones of fires, thing like that."

The Express and Star asked readers to send in photos during the World Cup, getting about 150 photos per day by the end of the week. “We're setting up a community platform where there would be basically village correspondents who post on our website,” says Harrison.

Source: Journalism.co.uk through Ifra Executive News Service