The Corpus Christi (Texas) Caller-Times and The Bakersfield Californian are two daily locals that, largely by supporting user-generated content, buck the trend observed by Amy Gahran, of the Poynter Institute, to move away from local coverage. The papers have developed loyal and growing audiences.

Bakersfield.com began hosting weblogs two years ago and since its launch, has become home to 1,192 individual bloggers, 314 of which are updated within the last three months. Community content now represents 18 percent of Bakerfield.com's traffic. Logan Molen, vice president of the Californian's interactive media said, "It is easily the fastest growing source of traffic for us."

The Caller-Times, in turn, garners around 560 comments a day - a number enviable by many larger papers - and especially impressive for a paper with a 54,000 daily circulation.
 
"One day earlier this month a Corpus businessman was shot while cycling before work. A check of the digital back fence showed 56 people had commented on the paper's coverage by noon. Acts of troubling random violence aside, a story on summer jobs had drawn 33 comments, and the newspaper's columnists each seemed to draw a healthy handful. In fact, of all the local stories on the website that day, more had comments than didn't," notes the Readership Institute.

Caller-Times Editor Libby Averyt addresses readers regularly in a column, and listens to their feedback. Wheen readers mourned the dropping of a popular comic strip, the paper reversed the decision and when the paper stopped printing the TV book, the paper smoothed over complaints with a compromise of a stand-alone section of trimmed-down listings.

Local-focus, with locally generated content has led the Caller-Times to be able to cite year over year increases in paid print circulation (up 0.25 percent daily, 0.18 Sunday, according to FAS-FACS).

Sources: Readership Institute, Poynter Institute