We have been working away on our new citizen journalism project, LocalNews Daily. We’re still playing with the technology to make it as easy as possible for people to publish their material. This is crucial as we do not want complexity of use to be a barrier to people accessing their voice here.
In the meantime we have commenced a campaign to let folks in our area know about LocalNews Daily. Here’s some of what we are doing to find readers and writers:
Once we get a trickle of content we will hit the community radio airwaves in pursuit of a broader audience.
As with any project like this, content is king.
Our objective with LocalNews Daily is to be completely open to content and attract from the broadest range of contributors possible. Once we see the range of content we receive we will retrofit sections (categories) to enable easier finding of content suited to reader interests. We felt that by creating specific categories today beyond the few we have would set pigeonholes which might restrict participation.
We realise that we are working with generations which have grown up with others creating and editing news. This passive connection with news has allowed news to drift and our hope is that LocalNews Daily will empower citizens (in our small area at least) to claim the news back. This can be achieved through accurate reporting of local events, this ensuring citizens are better informed and more involved in local decisions which affect them.
Newspapers and the sale of news and information are important to our retail business. The category accounts for more than 50% of our sales. We see LocalNews Daily providing a deeper connection in terms of the category and helping us experience the citizen journalism movement first hand. It also provides a way for us to connect with a local demographic – our expectation is that they are more likely to participate in creating and reporting news.
LocalNews Daily has grown out of our desire to engage with our community in the deepest way possible.
While LocalNews Daily has grown out of a business (Forest Hill Newsagency) we are not applying any editorial control on content other than to protect against offensive material.