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posted by LaminatorX on Sunday August 17 2014, @04:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the Bloom-Picayune dept.

Hyperlocal news is an emerging type of news production the opposite of national news, it is focused on a much smaller, specific area.

Regional newspapers continue to struggle and local TV often falters, sometimes before it's even begun but this emerging breed of news production seems to be thriving.

Some are set up as news sites while others are blogs originally started to address a particular local issue, like a threat to close a local leisure centre or to cover a specific planning concern. They then grow to cover different topics and become the go-to site for people to find out about what is happening in their area. Few have much funding and many are precariously organised, but sites like these are starting to become powerful tools for people who want to hold power to account.

There are around 600 active hyperlocal websites in the UK. They vary in size and scope, with some covering news in a single village and others stretching across heavily populated suburbs or towns. Some are run for profit, offering advertising to local businesses, while others seem to simply be aimed at contributing to civic wellbeing.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday August 17 2014, @05:02AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday August 17 2014, @05:02AM (#82207) Homepage

    The San Diego Reader has a section called "stringers," [sandiegoreader.com] in which readers are invited to share their own local news stories and are compensated up to $200 a story depending on the content and the accompanying media (pictures, videos, etc.).

    It would be great if more mainstream regional news showcased consumer-submitted media.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 17 2014, @05:05AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 17 2014, @05:05AM (#82208)

      Jesus F. Christ you talk a lot.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday August 17 2014, @05:29AM

      by frojack (1554) on Sunday August 17 2014, @05:29AM (#82209) Journal

      Yeah, but you can see the lawsuits coming out of the woodwork when Joe Sixpack decides to bet back at his ex-boss with a totally fake but plausible story.

      Its not like I trust journalists, but I trust revenge porn already proved the world is full of vindictive asshats.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
  • (Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday August 17 2014, @06:17AM

    by tftp (806) on Sunday August 17 2014, @06:17AM (#82220) Homepage

    Regional newspapers continue to struggle and local TV often falters, sometimes before it's even begun

    Perhaps there isn't enough readers who are willing to pay even small money for those local news? My own interests, for example, do not include local news. I will get all that I really need to know in the mail, or as new road work. I don't object to paying for local news, but I have no use of them, and I have no time to read them.

    A Web-based site may be a good substitute because it costs next to nothing to run, and it satisfies the needs of everyone who wants to know what's happening. No need to waste trees on this. The subject was never worth it.

    • (Score: 1) by tonyPick on Sunday August 17 2014, @01:05PM

      by tonyPick (1237) on Sunday August 17 2014, @01:05PM (#82264) Homepage Journal

      it costs next to nothing to run, and it satisfies the needs of everyone who wants to know what's happening

      That depends on how much time you invest in it though; interesting perspective here:
      http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2012/may/25/hyperlocal-media-local-newspapers [theguardian.com]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 17 2014, @09:11PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 17 2014, @09:11PM (#82386)

      The problem is that those who live in poorly managed locations want to move out and don't see trying to fix their local government as the easiest solution. Easier to just move to a better managed community. Those who don't care enough to fix it or move just stay. So in a sense we vote by moving to an area that suits us best. A problem with the federal government is harder to fix by just moving out.

      • (Score: 1) by tftp on Monday August 18 2014, @09:16PM

        by tftp (806) on Monday August 18 2014, @09:16PM (#82757) Homepage

        Easier to just move to a better managed community.

        It's not only easier; sometimes it is the only democratic way. Imagine that your needs are not perceived by the majority as important. What are your chances to convince 10,000 families that their choice of the $official is not in their interests? Worse still, what if their choice is in their interest, but your needs aren't? (For example, you want a new school built; but everyone else can't care less.) It's not simply an unlucky occurrence; occupants of the area self-selected themselves to this quality of life and to this quality of service - in exchange, perhaps, for a low cost of living. Moving out is not just the easiest solution; it's the only solution, short of demolishing the area and rebuilding it from scratch according to your designs.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 17 2014, @06:31AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 17 2014, @06:31AM (#82223)

    Eyewitless Nooz has never been worth a hoot.
    Anything Progressive[1] doesn't make it to the for-profit lamestream media.
    It's pretty much the if-it-bleeds-it-leads sort of garbage.
    Lamestream media isn't looking to inform you; it's trying to titillate you.
    If they cover a counterculture event|3rd-party movement|protest, it's to jeer at it.

    Any hyperlocal TeeVee would be cable-only.
    I've never thought cable was worth paying for.

    There's a 43 watt "community radio" station about 5 miles from me.
    It mostly plays unannounced automated music (pretty good selection of bluesy/R&R stuff).
    Sunday mornings it has some "community" stuff. Mostly uninteresting.

    I gave up on TeeVee and corporate radio as useful sources of information before the turn of the century.
    The newspaper occasionally snags a prize for reporting, [wikipedia.org] but not often enough to bother with it daily.

    There are subdomains of Patch.com for several of the more affluent cities that are near mine, but it appears no one in my large working-class city has enough spare time to dedicate to one for this town.

    There's a mostly-Left-leaning political blog that covers the county pretty well, and another Right-leaning more-general one that reports things about my city--mostly after they're all over.

    There's was a dead-tree weekly that catered to the county's hipsters; it went completely online years ago.
    Mostly entertainment; it's not often there's something actually useful there.

    [1] To those who scoff at the term, Republican Teddy Roosevelt was a Progressive.

    -- gewg_

  • (Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Sunday August 17 2014, @10:13AM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Sunday August 17 2014, @10:13AM (#82248)

    New hyperlocal news from Kalikori Village. This week's issue includes:

    - Ranna's Reflections
    - Star of Kala'unn found!
    - Droid discovers holocron in cave
    - Shuttle service changes departure times
    - Who will be the 1000th Padawan to climb the Thousand Steps?
    - Ask Kalisa - Master Gehnso answers your health questions
    - Thoughts From Kolovish

    --
    (E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 17 2014, @11:09AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 17 2014, @11:09AM (#82254)

      What's your email address?

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Meepy on Sunday August 17 2014, @03:05PM

    by Meepy (2099) on Sunday August 17 2014, @03:05PM (#82286)

    My town of around 12,000 uses occasional Facebook posts for official news as well. For local rumors and general craziness everybody goes to a Topix forum. There's two levels of small newspapers - town and county-wide, but they seem to be just an outlet for advertising with practically no news of interest. Sadly, I think the time of professional local reporting has past.

  • (Score: 1) by ticho on Monday August 18 2014, @06:37AM

    by ticho (89) on Monday August 18 2014, @06:37AM (#82497) Homepage Journal

    Wait, I thought we are supposed to use facebook or g+ pages for this kind of stuff. Is the tide finally turning back to normal web? It would be about time.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @04:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @04:23PM (#82658)

    I think it's quite silly we have isolated web pages for stuff like this. After all everybody is living locally, everybody needs to know this stuff. It's a fact of our physical world.

    So I hereby propose that we rig the intarweb with a new protocol that would define that a web page is relevant only or mostly to a specific geographical area. And then proceed to use a distributed search mechanism to find the sites that are local to us.

    What do you think? Is there some reason doing this would be a bad idea?