Helping faculty build community and statehouse news partnerships

 There are a couple of interesting community journalism conferences this month https://www.uvm.edu/ccn/events

One focuses on university-sponsored news operations covering statehouses Sept. 28-30 at Missouri.

The other (Sept. 8 online) is aimed at improving the faculty resources page put out by the University of Vermont's Center for Community News. You can find the page here. 

 https://www.uvm.edu/ccn/faculty-resources

Akron's Devil Strip local news co-op shuts down unexpectedly

It's unclear how a news co-op could shut down suddenly and unilaterally.

But the sudden demise of Akron's Devil Strip may be an important learning moment as the push to find new community news business models continues.

https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/10/lauded-local-news-co-op-shuts-down-without-warning-leaving-its-co-owners-in-the-dark/

When a newspaper chain lets a community's small daily newspaper deteriorate

From The Rural Blog

All across America, small newspapers are shriveling, mainly because digital media have taken much of their advertising base. Quantifying that on a national scale would be very difficult; the U.S. has more than 6,000 newspapers, most of them small. But a story about one, The Hawk Eye of Burlington, Iowa, is emblematic of the problem, which is worst for small daily papers bearing a burden of debt incurred by hedge-fund buyers like GateHouse Media, which took over Gannett Co. and its name.

Elaine Godfrey, who grew up near the Mississippi River town of 24,000, writes for The Atlantic about The Hawk Eye under the new Gannett: "Its staff, now down to three overstretched news reporters, still produces a print edition six days a week. But the paper is dying. Its pages are smaller than they used to be, and there are fewer of them. Even so, wide margins and large fonts are used to fill space. The paper is laid out by a remote design team and printed 100 miles away in Peoria, Illinois; if a reader doesn’t get her paper in the morning, she is instructed to dial a number that will connect her to a call center in the Philippines. Obituaries used to be free; now, when your uncle dies, you have to pay to publish a write-up. These days, most of The Hawk Eye’s articles are ripped from other Gannett-owned Iowa publications, such as The Des Moines Register and the Ames Tribune, written for a readership three hours away. The opinion section, once an arena for local columnists and letter writers to spar over the merits and morals of riverboat gambling and railroad jobs moving to Topeka, is dominated by syndicated national columnists."

Using the recently created Burlington Breaking News Facebook page to solicit comments, Godfrey got dozens: "Readers noticed the paper’s sloppiness first—how there seemed to be twice as many typos as before, and how sometimes the articles would end mid-sentence instead of continuing after the jump. The newspaper’s remaining reporters are overworked; there are local stories they’d like to tell but don’t have the bandwidth to cover. The Hawk Eye’s current staff is facing the impossible task of keeping a historic newspaper alive while its owner is attempting to squeeze it dry."

Social-media sites that pop up when a newspaper withers "can be a useful resource, and a good source of community jokes and gossip. But speculation and rumor run rampant" on the Facebook page, Godfrey writes. "When a member hears something that sounds like gunshots nearby, she’ll post about it, and others will offer theories about the source. Once, I read a thread about an elementary-school principal suddenly skipping town. Some thought he might have behaved inappropriately with a student; one person said he’d been involved with a student’s mother; another swore they’d seen security-camera footage of the principal slashing tires in a parking lot at night. I checked The Hawk Eye and other outlets, but I couldn’t find verification of any of those stories."

The guessing is hard for Dale Alison, former Hawk Eye editor, to watch. "He often interjects in the comments to correct false information. Sometimes he posts news himself. . . .  People want to know what’s going on, Alison told me; they just don’t know how to find the answer, whom to call, where to look. That’s what reporters are for."

Godfrey touches on another national trend seen all over the country: "In the absence of local coverage, all news becomes national news: Instead of reading about local policy decisions, people read about the blacklisting of Dr. Seuss books. Instead of learning about their own local candidates, they consume angry takes about Marjorie Taylor Greene," the radical Republican congresswoman from Georgia.

And she senses an even more disturbing trend, relayed by Mayor Jon Billups, who was fired as The Hawk Eye's circulation director in 2017: "Since the purchase of the paper, he’s noticed a growing negative self-image among residents, he told me. Fewer people see Burlington as a nice place to live; they seem to like their neighbors less. 'We’re struggling with not having [this] iconic thing.' As mayor, he helped start a newsletter to keep residents updated on city projects. 'It’s a matter of time before our local paper does not exist.'"

Like many towns with shriveled papers, Burlington has an online news site, the Burlington Beacon, founded by Jeff Abell, soon joined by William Smith, both former Hawk Eye reporters. "The Beacon is far from profitable. Until recently, Abell paid Smith from his own pocket. The two work out of Abell’s comic-book store in downtown Burlington," Godfrey reports. “Jeff and Will are doing their best,” Alison told her in an interview at the newspaper's building, now for sale. “But doggone it, it would take 150 years to build up what they had here.”

Godfrey reflects, "When people lament the decline of small newspapers, they tend to emphasize the most important stories that will go uncovered: political corruption, school-board scandals, zoning-board hearings, police misconduct. They are right to worry about that. But often overlooked are the more quotidian stories, the ones that disappear first when a paper loses resources: stories about the annual Teddy Bear Picnic at Crapo Park, the town-hall meeting about the new swimming-pool design, and the tractor games during the Denmark Heritage Days. These stories are the connective tissue of a community; they introduce people to their neighbors, and they encourage readers to listen to and empathize with one another. When that tissue disintegrates, something vital rots away. We don’t often stop to ponder the way that a newspaper’s collapse makes people feel: less connected, more alone. As local news crumbles, so does our tether to one another."

Interesting community media book

This is from a review in the new Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly:

Community-Based Media Pedagogies reports a comparative study of three community media projects across New York, Toronto, and Montreal, examining how community-based pedagogies are helping to explore the spaces that facilitate listening and storytelling in community spaces. This research-based examination tries to demystify and comprehend the ways and means of production of ideas and opinions in community spaces

Community-Based Media Pedagogies: Relational Practices of Listening in the Commons

Bronwen Low, Chloë Brushwood Rose & Paula M. Salvio, New York, New York: Routledge, 2017. 128 pp. $140.00 hbk. $38.36 pbk. $23.98 ebk.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1077699019867990

Family-owned firm, started 3 years ago, is already 6th largest owner of U.S. papers

From The Rural Blog

Adams Publishing Group, a newspaper firm that is barely three years old, has bought more than 100 small dailies, weeklies and shoppers in at least 15 separate transactions," Poynter Institute media-business analyst Rick Edmonds writes for the Iowa Newspaper Association's INA Bulletin. That makes it the nation's sixth-largest owner of newspapers, according to a March 2017 report by Visiting Professor Carol Wolf for the University of North Carolina's Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media. About half its papers are in Minnesota, where it is based.

Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media map; click on it to enlarge

"In contrast to other big consolidators, they often leave existing management in place, do not impose cookie-cutter content templates, and do not start by stripping down newsrooms of editors and reporters," Edmonds reports.

One example is its purchase of Jones Media, a Greeneville, Tenn.-based chain that was in its fourth generation of family ownership until patriarch John Jones died in 2016 and his descendants forced a sale over the objection of CEO Gregg Jones. He "chose to stay and has nothing but good things to say about the company," Edmonds reports, quoting him: "I'm working harder and enjoying myself more than I ever have. . . . These are the kind of people we want buying newspapers."

CEO Mark Adams rarely speaks
publicly about the firm he runs.

Edmonds couldn't elicit comment from the company, and called it "secretive." The firm is part of a diversified portfolio owned by "billionaire investor Stephen Adams and his family," who "have flown largely under the radar, unknown to those outside the industry," the UNC report says. "The company looks to buy non-metro publications where the newspapers or groups have revenue of about $10 million, said Larry Grimes, of W.B. Grimes & Co., a Gaithersburg, Md.-based mergers-and-acquisitions advisory firm specializing in media properties. Adams Publishing looks for large niche markets and buys within a geographic region. So far, the company has focused primarily on purchasing papers in the Midwest, but it owns publications as far east as the Jersey shore."

Al Jazeera America suspects it may have found America’s smallest two-paper town

Al Jazeera America paints an interesting picture this week of the media landscape in Crawfordsville, Ind., population 15,000.

Crawfordsville is home to two daily newspapers, the Journal Review and The Paper. Al Jazeera America writer Kevin Williams speculates in the article that Crawfordsville might be the smallest U.S. town with competing daily newspapers. Data on the number of two-paper towns is hard to come by, Williams writes. He interviewed media business analyst Rick Edmonds, who said Crawfordsville “sounds like a good bet” to be the smallest.

Journalists quoted in the story make great observations about the value of local ownership and editorial control. They also stress the importance of documenting daily life in their communities. Jack Lule, chair at Lehigh University’s Weinstock Center for Journalism, makes this point in the article:

Two-newspaper towns survive for a good reason: despite all the possibilities of digital media, local coverage still is handled best by local newspapers. People have all sorts of access to news on Washington politics, the latest airline disaster, Mideast tensions and other national and international stories. But local politics, obituaries, sports, concerts, street closings and news stories on that level still are reported only by the local newspaper. 

Is Crawfordsville really is the smallest town in the U.S. with two daily newspapers? I don’t know of any smaller towns with two dailies, although there are many rural communities with competing weekly publications. Oneida, Tenn., population 5,000, has two strong weekly newspapers.

I’d love to hear from you, blog readers. Do you know of any smaller towns with competing daily newspapers?

If a big paper has little TV competition, it can be a community newspaper

By Al Cross
Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

When my former assistant Amy Wilson told me last year she was headed back to the Orange County Register, and informed me of the goings-on there, I said, "It sounds like America's largest community newspaper." A few days ago Rory Carroll of The Guardian wrote in his report on the Register, "Staff call it America's biggest community newspaper."

The reasons Rory suggested were different than mine, but they are complementary, and all may be necessary for our near-identical appellations to be true -- and for Aaron Kushner and Eric Spitz, owners of the Register for one year now, to be successful.

The staff's description of the paper was embedded in this Guardian passage: " . . . the key is local news, especially topics such as faith, schools, sports, food and crime. It has about 30 photographers, including trainees. . . . It runs 175 weekly reports, with colour photos, of high school sports – everything, girls and boys, football, baseball, basketball, hockey, tennis. A separate section covers high school arts. The paper also offered full subscribers a 'golden envelope' allowing them to donate $100 of advertising to their favourite charity."

My description of the Register (circulation 130,000, Sundays 300,000) is based not only on its local focus, but its strong grip on the local-news franchise in Orange County, a market of 4 million people that gets scant coverage from the Los Angeles TV stations and, probably, the Los Angeles Times. If people in Orange County want a lot of news about Orange County, they pretty much have to read the Register, one of its 28 geographic-based weeklies or, soon, the new daily paper that Kushner and Spitz are planning in Long Beach.

The Register's circumstances probably mean that its bold experiment (doubling the size of its news staff to 360, for example) can't be replicated at most metropolitan papers, but it does demonstrate that market-to-market differences provide opportunities for experimentation and exploitation -- and that the skills of community journalism can serve large newspapers, too. For the rest of Rory's story, click here.

Panel at AEJMC convention examines wide range of local, online news start-ups

“Startling Start-Ups in the Business of Journalism,” a COMJIG panel at the AEJMC convention, explored a wide range of new local-news outlets, from Chicagoland to the intermountain West to rural Kentucky, and ended with a project specialist for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation explaining what the foundation looks for as it funds news start-ups.

Rich Gordon, director of digital innovation at Northwestern University, discussed his 2010 Chicagoland study of 206 “micro-publishers,” which he defined as those not affiliated with “legacy media.” (Including the legacy-media sites, he found a total of 449 in the area.) Of the 206, only 36 were focused on particular neighborhoods or towns, which 170 were aimed at a niche audience or interest. Those included 15 run by local organizations, and many sports blogs, which “are huge” in the region, he said.

Gordon discussed several sites, including Gapers Block, which he said is a key link in the region’s “new news ecosystem” because it both links and gets links from many other sites; Evanston Now, which covers that city well and is critical of its spending; Progress Illinois, owned by the Service Employees International Union, which he said is becoming influential in the state’s political discourse; and Brown Line Media (named after a northern commuter train route), which has been the most successful at generating revenue but only breaks even.

Gordon said not all the owners want to make a business out of their site, and most are so small the will never have a dedicated advertising sales person. He referred the audience to a study by Brown Mine Media owner Mike Fourcher of why a regional advertising network for local sites failed: a long sales cycle, relatively small number of impressions and rates that were too high. But with increased networking among the sites, Gordon said, “I am quite confident that more linking will raise all boats.”

Heidi Kulicke of the Orange County Business Journal updated the audience on her September 2011 Editor & Publisher articles about six “Newspaper Trailblazers,” three online and three print.

She followed up on the latter and found that the Great Plains Examiner in Bismarck, N.D., is now selling paid subscriptions after starting as a free monthly; the Flathead Beacon in northwestern Montana, which is still subsidized by owner Maury Povich; and Eric Buskirk, who isn’t making money with the Henderson (Nev.) Press but is with another weekly in Hemet, Calif., which he rescued from closure.

Kulicke’s package of stories also looked at the Bozeman (Mont.) Magpie, the Pulaski County Daily News of Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.; and The Faster Times of New York City, all online-only publications.

Al Cross of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based at the University of Kentucky, reported on a study that identified and analyzed local online news sites in Kentucky that were not affiliated with newspapers. He and student Richard Yarmy found 28, 18 of which were active, posting almost daily, with eight of those operated by one owner in what Cross called “a homegrown Patch” SurfKY.com. (Google map)

Yarmy’s analysis of the sites’ content found that about half the stories were from press releases, about half of those governmental; that local-government reporting was spotty; that publishers placed much importance on obituaries, especially in markets without a daily paper; and that the chain's sites tended to have more daily posts than the independent, solo sites, some of which are simple blogs not operated with the intent to make money.

Yarmy’s interviews with the owners found that most were motivated by a desire to provide a public service, and some wanted an alternative to Topix, the nationally operated network that aggregates news about localities and provides bulletin boards for local comments.

The CEO of Topix said Kentucky was the No. 1 state for traffic to the site, and Cross hypothesized that stems from the fact that Kentucky has dozens of small counties that cannot support “a newspaper worthy of the name,” so local residents turn to Topix in an effort to voice their concerns and hold local officials accountable.

Cross and Yarmy said the study should be expanded to define best practices for online community news sites, perhaps including development of a manual for them.

Amy Starlight Lawrence, a project specialist with the Knight Foundation, said Knight likes to fund community news projects that are sustainable and supported by the community, with advertising, subscriptions, single-copy sales or money from local community foundations.

Lawrence said those seeking financial support for local news sites should look to individuals for help, because only one in 10 of the philanthropic dollars in the U.S. come from foundations. She discussed a collaborative project in Macon, Ga., involving The Telegraph, Georgia Public Radio and Mercer University. UPDATE, Sept. 16: Here is a New York Times story about the project.

The PowerPoint presentations from Gordon and Cross, and a PDF of Kulicke’s article, are in a PPTX file (13 MB) that can be downloaded here.

Leaders of tornado-blasted community cite weekly's reappearance as sign of revival

The office of the weekly Licking Valley Courier "was demolished" and Publisher Earl Kinner's home across the street "was leveled" as Kinner took refuge in his basement during a tornado in West Liberty, Ky., a week ago today, Kentucky Press Association Executive Director David Thompson reports. Janet Patton of the Lexington Herald-Leader has a story about the paper's struggle to recover.

This week's edition was a day late, but at a press conference timed to start exactly a week after the storm hit, Morgan County Judge-Executive Tim Conley held up a copy and said it was a sign the community will return. The headline: "Thank God for sparing so many." (Photo by John Flavell)

The weekly newspaper established its first online presence in the wake of the tornado, as reporter Miranda Cantrell started a Facebook page that includes news updates and the paper's story about the disaster. "It was one of the proudest moments of my life when I saw that press rolling our papers," she told us.

KPA's Kentucky Journalism Foundation has created a fund to assist the paper and any others in Eastern Kentucky that suffered damage. "If you wish to make a donation, please make the check payable to Kentucky Journalism Foundation and mail to 101 Consumer Lane, Frankfort, KY 40601," Thompson writes. "I'm pleased to report that contributions are on their way to the foundation from newspapers in other states as well as state press associations. And I’ve been in touch with Xerox Corporation to request the donation of a printer or two." 

New research: Small-town readers still prefer paper

A new report from the Reynolds Journalism Institute finds that in small communities, the newspaper is still the preferred way of getting local news.

Before we go too far on this, however, keep in mind it is a multivariate problem that also goes to the availability of such news online and the penetration of easy access to online (still not so great in some rural areas).

Readers in smaller communities may prefer the paper, but ...

A new study from the Reynolds Institute and the National Newspaper Association is being framed as "readers in areas served by community newspapers continue to prefer the community newspaper as their sources of local news and advertising."

From the release:

The survey, in its sixth year, shows consistent trends.  

Readers prefer the printed copy to the online version, with 48 percent saying they never read the local news online. 

They prefer to receive advertising through the newspaper (51%) instead of on the Internet (11%). And only about a quarter of respondents said they had found local news through a mobile device in the past 30 days. Slightly more (38%) said they had received local shopping information by mobile device.  

They also have a strong preference for government accountability through newspaper public notice, with 80 percent saying the government should be required to publish notices in the newspaper.

Let me suggest a slightly different interpretation. If a quarter of your market said it was using a device to access your product -- in this case mobile -- would that be an "only" to you or a cause for management to start thinking strategically in that area?

If more than a third said they received local shopping information on a platform -- mobile -- and the suggestion was that perhaps not all of them are going to your site, would that be a cause for concern? Or are you willing to write off more than a third of your audience - a segment likely to grow? (Unfortunately, the release talks about a "trend," but provides no trend data or a link to the time series raw data files. You should also read the footnote to the study carefully because the methodology has changed a bit.)

Yes, it's clear community papers continue to have an important place in the media mix of consumers, but I don't think it's all unicorns and rainbows as the release might suggest with this quote:

"The survey shows a majority of respondents believe that the newspaper does a better job of providing background and depth on stories essential to citizens,” Anfinson said. “Further, the newspaper is more useful to them personally than any other news source. It not only highlights the strong bond between local communities and their newspapers, but demonstrates that people do value good journalism." 

If I'm running a business, I'm not willing to give up a quarter or a third of my market, yet I've sat in many a meeting in recent years where community publishers defiantly act as though digital is the enemy or, if they have digital assets, seem largely clueless about them. Bad move.

(Also published on Common Sense Journalism.)

Why we need community papers - follow up

A little over a week ago, I mentioned here how Ed Henninger had put out a call in defense of community media to explain why we need community papers.

He's got some comments on his blog worth reading
http://edhenninger.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/its-time-for-us-to-tell-others-why-community-newspapers-matter/#comments

and

http://edhenninger.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/why-community-newspapers-matter-in-your-words/

The theme that runs through many of them is that community papers are the glue that helps hold communities together but also that the stories get action. This is from a woman at the Catholic Herald:

Someone wrote to us once to let us know that a story my coworker at the time wrote about a fundraiser, generated an additional $1,000 donation for his cause. After an article I wrote about a program that helps couples heal after having a stillborn baby, I received an email from someone who was touched by the article. Even better, the woman in charge of that program emailed me to let me know that she received a phone call the day it was published from a family who lost a baby—the grandmother wanted to know how she could help.

And this from another comment:

On Friday, a young mother came in our office to place a thank-you ad. Her baby boy died in a tragic car accident on the family property only weeks earlier. Of course, our newspaper covered the story but the story didn’t end with the facts.

As I talked to her, she related how she couldn’t have been standing in front of me without the prayers and support of her family, friends and community. She told me how the local churches prayed for the family and how they received cards from people they didn’t know — these individuals just wanted to share their grief. Others anticipated their needs by providing meals or just a shoulder to cry on. As I looked at her written words of thanks, I started immediately to think how I would sensitively handle this situation and honor her child. I took some of the words she said describing her child and worked them into a concept. The ad hasn’t run yet, but I hope it will help in the healing process.

That’s why I like working for a small-town newspaper. There’s a certain type of person who wants to live in such a community. And in my experience, most of these people value decency, reach out to their fellow man, and are solid individuals with solid morals. They say “Bless their heart…” when bad news happens and slip a 50-dollar bill to the minster or sheriff to help with a family’s need in an anonymous fashion. Of course, our headlines carry the drug arrests and other crime stories, but for the most part, we carry the stories of someone’s engagement and wedding, what’s happening in 4-H, and the goings-on of local politics.

A call to speak up for community newsrooms

Ed Henninger, a designer, fellow consultant (though he does it professionally, while I just dabble) and designer (OK, I tell him, some things can't be helped) has put out a clarion call for the best paean to community journalism.

Here's how he puts it in "It's time for us to tell others: Why community newspapers matter": As he puts it:

IT’S TIME WE GAVE community newspapers the credibility and respect they’ve earned—and we can lead that effort. Right here.

Like you, I’m tired of community newspapers being considered the “bottom of the heap.”

Like you, I’m tired of young journalists considering community newspapers a place to learn the business before they go on the “greatness” at The New York Times, The Washington Post or USA TODAY.

It’s about time journalists understand and appreciate the value of what all of those small newspapers do for readers and their communities.

The folks with the best comments get a PDF of his book, Henninger on Design.

Surely someone from COMJIG can win a copy. Go for it! (And, yes, Ed is a pretty darn good designer.)

COMJIG response

What follows below is my e-mail to the Council of Divisions about its written report following the COMJIG interview with COD reps this past August in St. Louis.

Comments?


> Hello Tony,
>
> I'd like to take a bit of your time to respond to the report "AEJMC
> Assessment of the Community Journalism Interest Group." The report
> came out of the oral interview the Council of Divisions
> representatives had with Andris Straumanis and me back in August in
> St. Louis. I consulted with past and present COMJIG officers and we
> would like you and the committee and the COD to know our thoughts.
>
> To be honest, we were surprised by the report. Personally, I thought
> it was negative and that the last line, "AEJMC should closely examine
> whether the group's status should be renewed" was threatening.
>
> I thought that Andris and I stated quite well why COMJIG's original
> mission and charge has changed and grown. The committee seemed to be
> asking us to continue to define ourselves along the old model of
> COMJIG being the "small newspaper" interest group/division. It's true
> that COMJIG grew out of the Newspaper Division (as a founding member I
> remember the meetings quite well), but COMJIG has had to grow with
> technology. Thus, we feel that we have to be the group that is open to
> all. COMJIG isn't just about the legacy media communicating with the
> audience along the traditional gatekeeper model, it also has to
> incorporate the non-traditional media seeking a dialogue with the
> audience ­ textual and non-textual. Being hyperlcoal has to include broadcasting, the 'Net, etc.
>
> Andris and I were asked what separates COMJIG from the Civic and
> Citizen Journalism Interest Group. So, then, I'd like to answer that
> question again by pointing out our call for papers for the past
> several years, which I and other officers helped write:
>
> The Community Journalism Interest Group (COMJIG) is interested in
> research focused on any and all aspects of community journalism. We
> emphasize that community need not just be defined as within
> traditional geographical or social boundaries, but that given
> technological advances it may also be applied to journalism and its relationship to communities of interest online.
>
> Our goal is to identify and present original, meaningful research that
> advances the understanding of the role of journalists and news
> organizations as members of communities, geographic or digital. We
> have particular interest in issues unique to those situations where as
> a function of geography or technology the community and news
> organization tend to be or have the potential to become highly engaged.
>
> I believe from that it's obvious that COMJIG isn¹t really about
> citizen journalism, per se. The key is that COMJIG is the place where
> people can discuss both "community" and "journalism" at a critical
> juncture of the media history timeline.
>
> Two new books, "Foundations of Community Journalism," by Bill Reader
> (former COMJIG head) and John Hatcher (current COMJIG program chair
> and vice head), and "Emus Loose in Egnar: Big Stories From Small
> Towns," make the distinction better than I do. Each also points out
> the distinction between community and citizen journalism. The latter
> book reports what many of us have noted for a few years now, that
> community journalism is the bright spot in traditional journalism,
> having been less affected by the digital transformation than
> metropolitan media. But it also must adapt to the digital era, and
> much of the research and service activity of COMJIG members is
> directed to that end. Also, the current issue of AJR has an article that places "hyperlocal" news sites (as more and more spring up) in context with community journalism.
>
> There is also a new journal put out by the Texas Center for Community
> Journalism that is now looking into key research on community
> journalism and it is partnering with COMJIG. And there is also the
> Convergence Newsletter run out of the University of South Carolina
> that highlights some community journalism efforts since convergence
> levels the playing field between the daily monopolies on the block and
> community news organizations, print and broadcast and websites.
>
> I would also note that we are trying to address some of the issues
> raised in the report. For example, the report says we (and all
> divisions and IGs
> actually) have to be more aware of diversity. We are thinking about
> this when we seek paper judges and panel members. Going hand-in-hand
> with that are recruitment efforts to draw in a more diverse group,
> both in their research interests and in their backgrounds.
>
> We also:
>
> * Have plans in the works for a syllabus exchange. It will likely be on our
> Yahoo page.
> * Are trying to drive traffic to the blog and our Facebook page where we
> can communicate better and more efficiently.
> * Are looking into "recruiting" grad students at either the mid-year in
> Oklahoma in March or the Southeast Colloquium (also in March) in
> Virginia. As a former COMJIG officer put it, we're probably better
> able to help budding scholars because our smaller size can easily
> translate into more care and nurturance of grad students than some of the larger divisions.
> * Are working to increase our research presence by having the vice chair
> and research chair "recruit" people. For example, when I was research
> chair I sent out a couple e-mails a day to those who had presented at
> AEJMC in the past reminding them that we existed. We can also deepen
> our research presence by having a stronger push for research papers
> and panels that couple with other divisions and interest groups and
> which look at both the research aspects of our field, as well as
> issues of diversity and international comparisons of community journalism.
> * Will get better with our blog postings.
>
> Taken all together I think that we not only stated our case clearly in St.
> Louis, but are working on necessarily expanding our core mission. The
> lack of research papers may not show this, but we can concentrate on,
> say, PF&R and/or teaching to validate our presence, as was mentioned at the meeting in St.
> Louis.

What's the word?

Community journalists may be wondering what the Project for Excellence in Journalism will say when PEJ on Monday unveils what it terms "groundbreaking research that paints a new, more nuanced portrait than captured before of how people learn about their community." That quote comes from PEJ Director Tom Rosenstiel. He says the research is groundbreaking because of a paradigm shift in methodology of data collection. Instead of the traditional method of simply asking people where they got their news about their community, the researchers took a path less traveled. It wasn't exactly a "Eureka!" moment, but the new approach instead asked people to say where they got their info in 16 different areas, from the all-important weather report (according to Paul Simon, we get all the news we need on the weather report) to where is a good place to eat (that's right, restaurant reviews).

The research of the sublime to the mundane was done with help from Pew's Internet and American Life Project and the Knight Foundation.

"The results paint an entirely different picture of local news than we have seen before, one that pinpoints the role of the newspapers more completely versus television, the internet and even volunteer newsletters and word of mouth," Rosenstiel said. "We can see a whole ecosystem of local news and information. This should help different media understand and communicate their role."

The report can be found here on Monday.

"Waiter, there's a lede in my soup"

Sometimes we get so caught up in our jargon that we forget that one person's escargot is another's plate of snails.

But what the link below represents is a chance for community journalists to connect with the people we talk to and write for. Sure, we define community journalism as hyperlocal journalism, but the idea of having a "bricks-and-morter" so-called news cafe with an online one is intriguing. It also gets us out in the street.

Anyone out there doing this? (That is, having a presence away from the newsroom in the community.) Is it a worthwhile idea, or something that the Daily Monopolies down the block need to think about more than community news organizations?

Have experiences to share? Let us know, please. Let's talk.

http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/09/chats-dont-have-to-be-online-a-newspaper-finds-success-with-its-downtown-news-cafe/

Nominating Committee slot filled

According to our bylaws, the head of COMJIG appoints a member of the two-person Nominating Committee, whose job is it to offer a slate of candidates for IG office.

Earlier this month in St. Louis we elected Hans Meyer of Ohio to chair the committee. Former COMJIG head Andris Straumanis, at University of Wisconsin at River Falls, has agreed to also serve with Hans on the committee. (I backed into the lede there; thank God I'm not a student anymore.)

Thanks to both.

The bulk of their work will be done as we approach the 2012 national conference next August in Chicago. Most of our officers agree to continue to serve, but please give careful consideration if either Hans or Andris approaches you.

Thanks.

Some sad news

It is with sadness that I pass on the following information: Von Whitmore died Aug. 25 from ovarian cancer.

Von had served as the chair of the Council of Divisions since the Denver Conference last summer, and had served as vice chair of the Council for the three years before that.

She was last at the mid-Winter meeting in Albuquerque. I didn't know her well, but she was always a genuinely nice person to me.

All paid up?

As community papers struggle to stay afloat, one media organization has an idea for its holdings. Thoughts?

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-medianews-group-adds-paywalls-to-23-more-newspapers/

Training redux?

As more and more community news orgaizations -- legacy media and new media (which I now understand is a cliched term) -- turn to contributions from so-called "citizen journalists," the temptation is to wonder what are readers/viewers/listeners/scrollers/clickers getting for their buck?

In other words, are they getting the real story, or just a rehashed press release? If you're an editor or publisher you may wonder how can to train these people. Follow the link to see i fthis may be up your alley. Thoughts?
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/08/bleacher-report-ups-its-game-by-taking-contributors-to-school/