When I was trying to come up with a conclusion to my doctoral research on local journalism, I penned these thoughts:
The internet has deeply problematized local journalism’s vision of its public…Online, all publics appear fragmentary. There is always an element of the public that cannot be networked. There is always a fraction of this uncaptured [...]

In 2006, Boston.com launched a local search tool that was supposed to be a big part of the site’s future. The project made perfect sense on paper: Readers would get search results focused on eastern Massachusetts. Those results would mix the best of the machine and human worlds by using algorithms and editors’ picks. Next [...]

In online-nonprofit-news terms, Charlottesville Tomorrow is an old timer. It’s been covering the growth and development around the Virginia city since 2005 — back when “twitter” was still a term confined to ornithological circles.
Born from executive director Brian Wheeler’s interest in local government (he serves as chairman of the county school board), the privately-funded Charlottesville [...]

An invite-only conference began today at the American Press Institute with a singular directive: “generating revenue from online content.” At the morning session, which just wrapped up, Greg Harmon of Belden Interactive and Greg Swanson of ITZ Publishing presented their survey of 2,400 U.S. newspaper executives. The cardinal finding, first reported this morning by Alan [...]

When newspaper executives met in Chicago last week to discuss new business models for the industry, they expected to hear from Steve Brill about his well-publicized venture to charge for online content. But the executives were surprised by a last-minute addition to their agenda: Alan Mutter, a veteran newspaper editor and entrepreneur widely known as [...]

Last month, Time Inc. announced a new “customized magazine” project it’s calling Mine. The idea is that you tell Time Inc. which of its magazines you like, and it’ll send you a customized set of issues combining content from each. I was on the record as skeptical, since I think customization is something the Internet [...]

A few design-related items that hang together:
— The ace web-designer Jason Santa Maria writes about the messy way sites display their comments. (This one included.)
Authors spend a good chunk of time and attention writing articles, but so little attention is given to the conversation that happens afterward. Most of the time readers are left to [...]