‘Positive Results’ from Seattle’s hyperlocal pilot project
by Matt McGee on Nov 3, 2009 in Industry
It seems like everyone involved in Seattle’s innovative hyperlocal/traditional journalism collaboration is pretty happy about how things are going.
The yearlong pilot is just a few months old, but the Seattle partners already see some positive results.
Justin Carder, founder of CHS Capitol Hill Seattle, points to an informational graphic created in collaboration with the paper. After the Times ran a citywide map of voting results from the August primary, Carder contacted the paper to develop a graphic targeted on the Capitol Hill neighborhood. When Carder posted the graphic, he also linked readers to the Times’ citywide map.
“The process to make that kind of collaboration happen wasn’t in place” before the partnership formed, he said.
Another example of the new partnership involved breaking news in a Seattle neighborhood. When a wild cougar was trapped in a city park on a Sunday morning, Magnolia Voice — one of Next Door Media’s sites — broke the story and alerted the Times.
Magnolia Voice was “out there at the first light of dawn, taking photos and providing coverage,” said Bob Payne, director of communities for the Times’ Web site.
That’s from a Poynter.org update on the collaboration this summer of the Seattle Times and a handful of leading hyperlocal news blogs. The whole piece is a good read if you’re curious to know more about how things are going over there.
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