Hyper-Local News Sites Evolving

If your local newspaper shuts down, what will take the place of its coverage?...A number of Web start-up companies are creating so-called hyperlocal news sites that let people zoom in on what is happening closest to them, often without involving traditional journalists.

Read more at The New York Times, April 12, 2009

A few local samples of "local" blogs - though of a different nature than those described in the article-
baristanet.com

glocallynewark.com

And Coming soon:
The Newark Mosaic

Do they fit the bill as growing alternatives to newspapers?  Are their writers/content creators "reliable"?  Is this the future of journalism?

Is this grassroots journalism filling the gaps left open by the conglomerates?

It'll be interesting to see how the big media corporations handle this niche market in the coming years.

Future of Newspapers & Journalism

Blogger Norman Oder discusses the future of newspapers & journalism, particularly in relation to the emergence of blogs. He summarizes key points from a recent Senate hearing on the newspaper crisis (watch video).

Oder also connects the conversation about the future of journalism to the development of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.

The most contentious issue, via Gawker and the New York Times’s Opinionator blog (as noted below), concerned the claim by former Baltimore Sun reporter and “The Wire” producer David Simon that he doesn’t see bloggers covering nitty-gritty local issues like zoning board hearings.

Read the full post here. Can bloggers fill in the gaps or are we witnessing the demise of journalism and the Fourth Estate?

...Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin, who has proposed a law that makes it easier to convert for-profit newspapers to charitable status, suggested that “our newspapers are a check on not just local government, and the federal government, but on corporations, on businesses, on community activity.”

How has the absence of robust local investigative journalism affected Newark?

TRANSMEDIA ACTIVISM: Storytelling for Social Change

Check out this article from NAMAC on how transmedia storytelling can be used to educate audiences, form communities, and address social issues.

“transmedia activism” is one of the best ways to have people connect to a cause, by exposing them to a variety of media properties over various distribution channels—which opens up avenues for dialogue and provides an audience an educational experience about workable solutions—and then working with the most creative and engaged audience segment to facilitate the creation of their own content that further explains the cause and inspires action around it.

Sued for Tweets? Can Law Keep Up?

CNN reports singer Courtney Love is getting sued for writing derogatory tweets about a designer. A tenant is sued for tweeting about (or is it defaming) a "bad" landlord.

But that's not all! Sexual harassment? Jurisdiction? Inheritance? Anonymity? There are so many issues when you stop to think about it. Can the law keep up? "It's a time of cultural shift and this is going to take a while to stabilize itself and shake out."

Read more and watch what you tweet.

"All Eyes on Murdoch" as he Defends his Newspapers Against Google

AFP story, published on here on Yahoo 11/15/09.
If link expires, try this link

Rupert Murdoch, who is considering charging internet users a fee to read stories from his newspapers, is accusing Google "of 'stealing' from his vast newspaper empire" and is threatening to "block the search engine from accessing its content."

The newspaper industry, hurting for revenues in the age of the free Internet news content, is carefully watching Murdoch's moves. Will this be the beginning of a new strategy to increase revenues? Or is it a misguided move that will simply shut Murdoch's "news" organizations (Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Fox News, among many others) out of the vast world of advertising and readers that Google's search engine can deliver?

How Google is Remaking the Media Landscape

Prolific author and N.Y. Times Columnist Ken Auleta speaks about his latest book Googled: The End of the World as We Know It on WYNC's Leonard Lopate Show.

A fascinating account of Google's rise and its impact on our culture and media landscape, including the newspaper, television, telephone, and advertising industries.

Listen at around Min 11:00 when he talks about why these changes pose serious challenges to independent journalism, investigative reporting, and issues like keeping those in power honest. "If newspapers continue to shrivel...you lose something...the blogosphere does not substitute for that"

Cloud computing is also discussed at minute 17:00.




Watch an excerpt (not the whole interview)

ABC Social: Play in our sandbox

"ABC Social: Episode Commentary is a new ABC Full Episode Player feature offering unique insight directly from show experts and fans, creating a more informative and entertaining viewing experience."

Spoiling is now officially sanctioned and virtually embedded into a show's on-line presence.

Here is a media company embracing collective intelligence and participatory fan engagement, viral marketing strategies employing social networking, and affective marketing strategies designed to enhance the emotional commitment of fans across multiple platforms.

Fans say  "Why go to fan forums when you can now spoil within the sandbox provided by ABC?"
Producers say "Why let the viewers go play elsewhere when we can build them our own sandbox (and target them with our ads)?"