Friday, July 18, 2014

Digital local news. Is there a hope?

I have often mentioned in this blog, the difficult challenge of local news trying to find some room in the new digital world.

On Gigaom website, Matew Ingram evokes the thankless task of the pioneers who have tried and failed to develop hyperlocal websites. A former journalist from the Washington Post, Jim Brady, is starting a new project brother.ly, set in Philadelphia and supported by a community of local bloggers able to inform about what is happening in their close surroundings.

Several other projects are launched in various parts of the US, all of them based on the contribution of bloggers who want to provide useful informations on their small community. It is worth noting that all large industrial projects of networks of local news sites have failed dismally.

It gives food for thought for the large regional newspapers that dominate the French scene. They were highly profitable when print advertising was triumphant and brought safe incomes. Now, this resource is fading away and their organization, heavy and costly fails to match the dwindling revenues from ads and sales. It seems that for local and hyperlocal information, small only is beautiful. The next ten years will bring a revolution to the European and American regional press.