UK blogger kicked out of court; NUJ fights back
This is a slap in the face to citizen journalists and local bloggers everywhere: In the UK, a local news blogger was kicked out of coroner’s court this past week, with the coroner saying the blogger wasn’t allowed to attend either as a journalist or as a regular citizen. Meanwhile, the local newspaper reporter was allowed to stay inside.
The blogger, Simon Perry of the Ventnor Blog, has been blogging for four years and is a 9-year member of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). Now, the NUJ is speaking up on Perry’s behalf. You can get the whole story from these two posts on Journalism.co.uk:
- Local news blogger refused entry to coroner’s court
- NUJ general secretary calls on coroner to allow blogger into court
Lost Remote tries defining Hyperlocal
This’ll be familiar to longtime readers of HLB: Lost Remote (a site you really should be reading, by the way) has taken a stab at defining “hyperlocal.” You may recall my post last fall, Defining Hyperlocal, that tried pretty much the same thing.
In Lost Remote’s case, they’re defining it in terms of a relation to “local” and “niche,” as well:
“Hyperlocal” covers neighborhoods, while “local” covers towns and cities. We get some press releases here about how stations or newspapers are starting new “hyperlocal” websites that cover their city or a given topic in their city (say, “moms”). A mom blog is a niche site. A neighborhood blog is hyperlocal. A city blog is local.
I definitely agree on the “niche” part, but I maintain that the definition of local vs. hyperlocal depends on
- Geography
- Content
Geography: In very small towns where neighborhoods are poorly defined or just don’t matter, you can be hyperlocal and still cover the whole town/city. I live in a city of about 10,000 people and, while we have a few distinct neighborhoods, I maintain that our blog is hyperlocal even though it covers city-wide events and (non-hard) news.
Content: I believe that what you cover also plays into the definition. What sets hyperlocal news sites apart is often a focus on covering minutiae that traditional media ignores — school board meetings, planning commission meetings, Little League sports, etc. Even if you cover a full city/town, I’d say you’re hyperlocal if your blog/site goes deeper (i.e., “hyper”) in its local coverage than what people are used to getting from the paper and TV news.
I know we already went through this definition stuff, but feel free to add your thoughts in the comments if you have an opinion.
Hyperlocal Sports: Tapping Into Hometown Passion
(This is a guest post by David Brazeal. By day, as director of Learfield InterAction, David helps organizations figure out how social media fits into their marketing plans. By night, he produces RepublicTigerSports.com, a hyperlocal sports site focused on his hometown Republic Tigers in southwest Missouri.)
About six months ago, I decided to start a new hobby. I’ve always been a sports fan. I used to do a little sportscasting on a small radio station. And my Friday nights were free.
So I started a Wordpress website, RepublicTigerSports.com, to keep track of the local high school football team. I hoped to stream some play-by-play of the football games, get a few friends to listen, and maybe snag a sponsor or two.
But coaches and parents for every sport — football, softball, volleyball, etc. — jumped on the idea. They started sending me scores and stats and photos, even when I wasn’t at their games. They spread the word among their friends and relatives. Soon, people knew they could get up-to-the minute scores and in-depth game summaries from the website, instead of waiting until the next day or the next week.
I used my iPhone to record video, and uploaded highlights while the game was still happening. I posted quick status updates to Twitter. I over-delivered for what a community this size expects for its local sports media coverage. And the community embraced it.
I should say that there are lots of places to find information on high school sports in this area. The Springfield News-Leader covers all of southwest Missouri. The Republic Monitor has excellent weekly coverage (and their sports reporter has been great to work with). A recently launched website covers high school sports for al of southwest Missouri. And yet another sports reporter has started a site that is focused on the Central Ozark Conference, the league in which Republic competes.
But I think a few key ingredients differentiate RepublicTigerSports.com from those outlets.
1. Over-kill
Six months ago, the Republic Tigers got occasional coverage in the Springfield News-Leader, weekly coverage in the Republic Monitor, and sporadic mention on one of the local TV stations. Now, local fans can get real-time scores, video highlights, audio play-by-play, mobile phone updates, high-quality photos, and more. It seems ridiculous, really — but it’s not that hard to do, if you get creative with some free online tools.
2. Hyper-hyperlocal
Even the weekly Republic Monitor must cover sports in some nearby smaller towns. It’s the nature of the newspaper business that they need to sell copies in those other communities. I had the luxury of building an audience from scratch. If it doesn’t happen in Republic, I don’t cover it. If it’s not sports, I don’t cover it. Focusing so narrowly has helped me tap into the passion of the community in a way that a regional site can’t. And it opens the door for a great fit with local business sponsors, some of whom have already signed up.
3. Free stuff
I wanted to give something to the community, because this is my hometown. And because this is a hobby, I haven’t felt like I need to monetize every single thing. If I snap a good action shot, I post it to Flickr and tell the player’s parents how to download the full-size photo, put it on a thumb drive, and take it to Wal-Mart to print it. If I get a video or play-by-play highlight, I email it around. I’ve given stuff away at every opportunity.
4. Social media
On a lark, I started a Facebook fan page for the site and emailed a few friends. Within a few weeks, it had several hundred fans. Now, that number is around 1,000. In a town of 14,000, that’s not too shabby.
In fact, the Facebook page is now the primary place where people see and interact with the content. Interaction with my audience on Facebook is off the charts. I get way more feedback on the Facebook page than on the website itself. And Facebook allows me to deliver updates right into the news feeds of fans, instead of waiting for them to come to the website.
I don’t know where this site is headed. But less than a year in, it’s far more popular than I expected. And I built it with a Wordpress theme, an iPhone, a Facebook fan page, and a few free social media tools. I have a few generous sponsors who helped me buy a nice camera and pay for some bandwidth. And I’ll have enough left over for a gadget or two. All without really putting much effort into selling the site.
But the most important ingredient has been the passion of the community for local sports. Tapping into that community passion makes hyper-local sports a major opportunity for people who are willing to put in a little work and be creative.
If you have questions about how it’s worked in Republic, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at david@republictigersports.com.
Hyperlocal News Roundup
I usually try to share some comments on the links that I include in these roundups, but not much to say this time — and not much time to say it, anyway.
Just this: I know many local bloggers are struggling to “play journalist” when covering local news. If that describes you, don’t miss Dave Harte’s piece linked below.
- Lost Remote: KLAS-TV to roll out hyperlocal network in Las Vegas
- TechCrunch: Fwix Launches API For Realtime Hyperlocal News
- Dave Harte: Notes on pretending to be a journalist
- TVNewsCheck: Hyperlocal: Good For Readers, Advertisers
Recommended Hyperlocal Reading
I made a slightly tongue-in-cheek comment in the headlines of the previous post here on HLB about AOL’s plans to expand its Patch network of hyperlocal sites. And then my post itself was far too brief (due to other commitments) to offer much value.
If you’re a local news blogger, or if you’re just interested in the subject, there’s a much more intelligent look at the AOL news, and some excellent comments, on a post by Jennifer Deseo — When Big Box meets hyperlocal news.
I’ve written before that, even though I don’t think they’ll succeed, it’s good exposure for all of us when Big Media announces a new hyperlocal blog/site network. In her post, Jennifer comes to the conclusion that this same thing can also be good for individual bloggers, but she comes at it from a financial angle. It’s a good read.
(BTW, Jennifer’s blog is new and looks to be recommended reading. She recently shut down her own hyperlocal news blog in Maryland and has a month’s worth of good stuff on The Hyperlocalist.)
AOL: Our Future Hyperlocal Overlords?
If the reports are to be believed, AOL has some massive plans for its hyperlocal blog network called Patch.
According to an internal communication with employees, AOL (AOL) plans to expand Patch, its network of local news blogs, from 30 sites to “hundreds,” by the end of 2010.
The goal: “To be leaders in one of the most promising ‘white spaces’ on the Internet.”
You can read the full article at Silicon Alley Insider. And there’s more discussion on Techmeme.
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