Quick Hits
Here is a lot of informative news from around the world of local journalism. Enjoy!
Learn:
"How THE CITY’s Open Newsroom initiative is creating a 'two-way street' of information sharing on issues like food insecurity, tenants rights and unemployment."
"How would a model that relies on local philanthropy work in communities that are underresourced? ... We asked that question of our own data — a sample size of some 165 news organizations varying from nonprofit startups to public radio stations to more traditional family-run newspapers that had never fundraised before. And we ran into what may seem like a surprising finding."
"This 'hub-and-spoke' model using statewide entities like Spotlight PA, VTDigger, Mississippi Today, Mountain State Spotlight, and many others provides a ready pathway to scale coverage to local cities and towns without building new organizations in every location."
"To understand what went wrong with digital journalism, we need to go back to the fat years of newspaper journalism that preceded it."
"In January I quietly launched a new company called Journalism Growth Lab. The aim is to help established publishers grow their audience and find paying customers using advertising platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tik Tok, YouTube, etc."
"Here is a short list of actions to rebuild and reconceive journalism that recognizes our changed world."
If you run a local news organization that’s trying to figure out reader or corporate funding, this post can help you get started.
"Whether you’re already involved in media & entertainment, or want to ramp up on the industry’s latest and most interesting developments, I think you’ll find this report a valuable resource."
"Publishers looking to reboot their markets following the pandemic need to recognize the retail sector is no longer their best revenue source," Wagner starts his latest column for state newspaper associations.
"But this decision was also risky: Almost a quarter of Stuff's traffic came from social media — and mainly from Facebook. 'We were expecting that it would bring a significant drop in our traffic,' Boucher said. Those fears never materialized. While Stuff's social media traffic did drop, overall traffic went up."
"The News Alerts of Beaver County group has become a must-read after the decline of the local newspaper. That's worked out, sometimes."
"In addition, Lee hopes to grow to 900,000 digital online subscription from 286,000 today, generate $100 million in annualized revenue from its Amplified Digital Agency in three years and achieve its long-term leverage target of under 2.5x."
"To say that the year since has been tumultuous is an understatement. There is no unaffected news organization; none went unscathed. COVID-19 impacted every facet of the business: staffing and safety; workflow; content and coverage; audience, revenue, and advertising; production, printing, and distribution. Due to that, it’s important for us to check in with newsrooms across the country—one year later—as the pandemic still looms."
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Thanks!
That's all for this week.
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Thanks again, stay safe, and we'll talk soon.
Jim.
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