It’s become clear that Journatic has some problems: Using incorrect or fictional bylines, plus plagiarism and fabrication of news.

But what if it didn’t?

Could Journatic’s model of cost-efficient outsourced journalism offer a viable future for hyperlocal news? If its ethics and standards of quality were exemplary, would it otherwise serve a community’s needs?

Most signs say: no.

You can’t be hyperlocal while hyperdistant

Journatic founder Brian Timpone told Poynter in April that “being based in the community is not beneficial” to local journalism.

But when I look around at hyperlocal success stories, many are driven by the will and personal commitment of a local individual. The Batavian is Howard Owens. Tracy Record is West Seattle Blog. That’s not to say others don’t contribute, but the sites wouldn’t exist or sustain themselves without individual dedication.

Of all the factors that shape coverage for West Seattle Blog, Record recently told Poynter, the most important is this: “We listen. When readers start to ask about a particular type of thing we hadn’t been covering … that’s a signal to us that it’s time to start covering. But that means you have to have a relationship with the community.”

[continua a leggere su Poynter]

WHEN the Tenby Observer, the local paper of a small Welsh fishing town, relaunched in 1978, it declared itself no longer interested in the goings-on of nearby Carmarthen and Haverfordwest. Henceforth it would report only on Tenby. The first edition carried a front-page story about thefts from a local caravan site (an “alarm clock, assorted foodstuffs and two clothes brushes”). The paper’s new owner, Sir Ray Tindle, told his reporters: “No cat should have kittens in Tenby without us knowing about it.”

The term “hyperlocal news” was not much used in those days, but that is what Sir Ray was up to. Last month the proprietor, now 85 and still running a stable of over 220 regional papers, applied the principle to his struggling South London Press, splitting it into seven more local editions focusing on individual boroughs. Readers’ interest in local news reaches only a short way from their doorstep, he says, and a local DIY store has no business advertising a hammer to someone on the other side of London. Three weeks after the launch, sales were up 44% on the month before—surprisingly high even considering the extra promotion.

[continua a leggere su The Economist]

A centre of excellence for hyperlocal websites is set to be officially launched at Cardiff University in September.

The community journalism centre aims to provide a link between hyperlocal news sites across Wales, giving them training and advice in areas such as media law and digital technology.

It aims to research business models being used by such sites and eventually to come up with a sustainable model for how they can best be run.

Centre manager Emma Meese said it would be funded through running short courses in digital media, which will be open to everyone, and through grants.

[continua a leggere su HoldTheFrontPage]

Sesto.tv, la web tv di Sesto Fiorentino, è stata costituita nel maggio del 2008 ed è gestita da una associazione di promozione sociale. Sesto.tv è anche una testata giornalisticaregistrata presso il tribunale di Firenze. L’associazione conta oltre 80 iscritti, mentre le attività della web tv vengono  portate avanti da 4 soci e da alcuni collaboratori esterni.

A dire la verità, il progetto iniziale prevedeva solo la creazione di una banca dati nella quale recuperare vecchie foto e filmati riguardanti la memoria della nostra collettività, ma quando si ha a che fare con la tecnologia e con Internet in particolare sappiamo che i progetti possono evolversi velocemente proprio per le opportunità che la rete offre. Quattro anni fa Youtube era quasi agli esordi, come pure la banda larga e le varie forme di connettività wireless.

All’inizio Sesto.tv ha cercato di coprire anche avvenimenti di cronaca locale alternandoli ad un lavoro di documentazione sul territorio. Successivamente, e con il rapido sviluppo delle tecnologie della rete (wi-fi, smartphone, internet via satellite), la nostra azione si è progressivamente spostata verso nuove attività, tra cui la realizzazione di dirette video in streaming di eventi che accadono nel nostro territorio.

[continua a leggere su Pluraliweb]

Dopo la curation verrà la “curation geolocalizzata”? L’ ipotesi è al centro di un articolo che Atelier.net dedica a una nuova piattaforma, Frrole, che propone di creare giornali locali sulla base dell’ aggregazione e del trattamento di tweet provenienti dalla stessa zona. Il servizio, che al momento è in versione beta  – spiega Atelier –, consente per ora di accedere a 50 città di sei paesi: Australia,  Canada, India, Singapore, Regno Unito e Usa. Proponendo serfizi di informazione in scala con la propria città o il proprio paese, sulla linea del giornalismo iperlocale. “Il concetto è interessante, anche se non è chiara la pertinenza del contenuto locale, visto che nessun dato consente di affermare che, per esempio in Francia, gli utenti di Twitter geolocalizzano i loro tweet’’sottolinea Damien Van Achter, sviluppatore editoriale e fondatore del laboratorio di sperimentazione digitale Lab Davanec.

[continua a leggere su Lsdi o l'articolo originale in francese su Atelier.net]

BlockBeacon, a communication platform that enables “hyper-local worlds of real-time commerce,” has released an iPhone app that allows local business owners to post live promotions and content directly onto the BlockBeacon map. The map is easily accessible via the app by users looking for places to eat, drink, shop, and play and opens line of communication between businesses and consumers in real-time.

BlockBeacon hopes  that the free app – which is also accessable from any Web browser – will “remedy” the broken merchant-to-consumer social interaction that should exist on a local level. With the app, consumers can easily stay on top of what businesses are doing in one easy place. However, the effectiveness of the app is up to the businesses; the floor would fall out from underneath if businesses don’t update regularly.

In order to make sure the app works and functions as intended, it’s only available in California right now. The app is featured in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego.

[continua a leggere su MediaPost]

The Times has decided to terminate its collaborations with the journalism schools of New York University and the City University of New York on two websites covering the East Village and the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill.

Both schools were given notice several weeks ago that the Timesintends to end its involvement with the sites—The Local of Fort Greene/Clinton Hill, its CUNY collaboration, and The Local East Village, a site it developed with N.Y.U. The schools are still working on a timetable for detaching themselves from the Times, which has given them at least until the end of the year before the partnership officially expires.

“This experiment has had a good run and the Times has learned some valuable lessons about hyperlocal journalism and collaboration,” said a senior Times editor who spoke anonymously because the plans had not been made public. “Now it wants to harvest those lessons and see where they might be applied.”

[continua a leggere su Capital New York]

• essere riconoscibili significa anche puntare sulla diversità (i giornalisti di Dichtbij, un sito iperlocale olandese che riesce a generare profitto,  sono considerati “organizzatori di comunità” e trascorrono metà del proprio tempo in strada o sui social network a raggiungere/conoscere i cittadini/lettori).

• lo scambio tra giornalista e comunità deve essere paritario (in Galles, sul blog iperlocale Wrexham.com, i lettori possono accedere alle pagine del sistema e aggiornare i prezzi del carburante applicati ai distributori. Il servizio è di utilità per tutti).

• la sostenibilità va difesa (l’ultima regola è di saggezza popolare: meglio puntare a obiettivi realistici o, detto altrimenti, restare con i piedi per terra).

[leggi tutto sul blog di Sara Lorusso o l'originale sul blog della WAN]

1. Who were the people behind the blog?

Port Talbot Magnet was started in 2010 by seven professional journalists from South Wales who had all been casualties of redundancy or cuts in freelance budgets in established magazines and newspapers. First and foremost, we are a workers’ co-operative, but we are also a social enterprise and so we are keen to ensure we a force for good in the community. Two and half years on, we still have seven directors, as well as around 20 co-op members and lots of volunteers.

2. What made you decide to set up the blog?

As NUJ members, we found ourselves sitting in so many meetings talking about cuts and closures and it felt sometimes like the local media industry was falling down around our ears. When redundancy hit most of our local Union branch committee we decided that we would do something proactive about the situation to try to ensure good quality journalism was still a viable, sustainable career.

As we were setting up the co-operative, we heard that the weekly newspaper in the town of Port Talbot was closing and it seemed an obvious gap for us to try to fill – here was a town of 35,000 people without a dedicated newspaper and here were seven out-of-work journalists who could supply news. Making the one pay for the other was, and in many ways still is, the problem.

3. When did you set up the blog and how did you go about it?

The blog came along much later. Our first ambition was to go into print and we spent about a year applying for funding and trying to get the project off the ground in some way. The funding applications weren’t successful unfortunately, and we had a crisis meeting where we decided to change tack and concentrate on what we did best – journalism. This turned out to be a good move, because we could show what we were capable of; people suddenly understood what we were trying to achieve.

In a more practical sense, we had no capital apart from donations from the directors and so we set up a WordPress blog, paying a modest amount for a theme, and we got in touch with local companies and the council and asked them to put us on their mailing lists for press releases. Then we spent lots of time learning the patch and making contacts. Facebook has been a particularly good way to reach the online community in Port Talbot (not many are using Twitter yet), and drives about half our website traffic.

[continua a leggere su Online Journalism Blog]