Project for Excellence in Journalism has released its report, "The State of the News Media 2007," and I'd really like to read it before commenting on it. Unfortunately I didn't make it past the first page of the 38-page executive summary before stumbling over this sentence:
For some, the new brand is what Wall Street calls “hyper localism” (consider the end of foreign bureaus at the Boston Globe or the narrowing of the coverage area at the Atlanta Journal Constitution).
No, no no! That's not hyperlocal. Not even close.
The Boston Globe doesn't do hyperlocal -- not yet, anyway. (They've hired innovator Bob Kempf from hyperlocal competitor WickedLocal.com.)
And as for the AJC, all it did was stop delivering the paper to remote towns where almost nobody was reading the paper anyway. What does that have to do with hyperlocalism? If anything AJC is moving the opposite direction, reducing the numbers of locally zoned editions and enlarging the zones.
There's a lot of good material in this year's report, but not on this topic.
Comments
High ambitions
The report also seems to suggests that local = "diminished ambitions." Anyone who has tried to produce strong, compelling journalism in an intensely local paper knows what hard work and high ambitions are. We don't have a foreign bureau -- Eden, N.C. -- doesn't quite fit the term, but we have high ambitions to serve all our readers with news that fits their needs.
the problem is "Wall Street defines..."
Wall Street defines "hyperlocal"??? that's very scary stuff. Wall Street is very removed from anything hyperlocal, so how would it know? And yes, closing foreign bureaus and narrowing coverage isn't "hyperlocal"--that's just cutbacks to save money....
I'm beginning to wonder if some folks doing all the analyzing are so blinded by hype and confused by buzzwords that they can't truly disern what's going on. It might help if they removed themselves from their hothouses and actually *talked* with people who live outside of major metropolitan areas and the Silicon Valley. Then, they might learn what hyperlocal is really about.
Wall Street names
What's with all the Wall Street references. Outside publicly traded media corporations, Wall Street has little to do with media, especially on the conceptual/theoretical side. Wall Street is certainly not the founder, or at all influence, of the term "hyperlocalism" or the theory behind it. Can someone please give their take on the Wall Street reference in Overholser's report?
gts
Wall Street names
What's with all the Wall Street references. Outside publicly traded media corporations, Wall Street has little to do with media, especially on the conceptual/theoretical side. Wall Street is certainly not the founder, or at all influence, of the term "hyperlocalism" or the theory behind it. Can someone please give their take on the Wall Street reference in Overholser's report?
Also, hyperlocalism is mainly fitted to geographic location, not the other way around. Without a hyperlocale, this type of approach doesn't seem to work. For example, media in mountain towns, coastal enclaves and rural outcroppings are greatly benefited by their seclusion. Hyperlocalism is natural here and easily harnessed. Metro suburbs — outside Atlanta, Long Island, L.A. — will have all the problems in the world defining their locale which naturally bleeds out, or around, from the metropolis' center.
gts