Comments on: Four reasons neighborhood papers might be the (or a) future of editing http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/09/four-reasons-neighborhood-papers-might-be-the-or-a-future-of-editing/ A collaborative effort to figure out the future of journalism. A project of Harvard University. Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:39:00 -0500 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Bob http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/09/four-reasons-neighborhood-papers-might-be-the-or-a-future-of-editing/comment-page-1/#comment-30989 Bob Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:56:22 +0000 http://www.niemanlab.org/?p=7126#comment-30989 I wish Swart much luck and success. Having spent the past four years caring for and feeding a similar but strictly online news venture, I understand his ambitions - I think. But some caveats: Sometimes the citizen-journalists are in it as surreptitious campaign operatives or otherwise hide an unfortunate agenda. If they're clever, you don't find out until later. Amatuer journalists can require a lot of hand holding. There are only so many hours in a day. You need as many of those hours as possible to devote to the pursuit of selling advertising, unless you have some other revenue model. Better would be a partner with kick-butt sales skills. Other area publications are likely to view you as competition. As such, they probably aren't going to be very interested in syndicating content from you. For the sake of longevity, focus on the revenue model. And on a financial partner. To reach an audience, they have to know you are there. This means marketing of some kind. Work hard, but work smart, too. Again, all the best. I wish Swart much luck and success. Having spent the past four years caring for and feeding a similar but strictly online news venture, I understand his ambitions – I think.

But some caveats:

Sometimes the citizen-journalists are in it as surreptitious campaign operatives or otherwise hide an unfortunate agenda. If they’re clever, you don’t find out until later.

Amatuer journalists can require a lot of hand holding. There are only so many hours in a day.

You need as many of those hours as possible to devote to the pursuit of selling advertising, unless you have some other revenue model. Better would be a partner with kick-butt sales skills. Other area publications are likely to view you as competition. As such, they probably aren’t going to be very interested in syndicating content from you.

For the sake of longevity, focus on the revenue model. And on a financial partner. To reach an audience, they have to know you are there. This means marketing of some kind.

Work hard, but work smart, too. Again, all the best.

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