Side Stories
editorial structure -- produces original news -- DFW area -- local -- some UGC -- some from Topix
Local news for the Dallas / Fort Worth area. Produces original content from an editorial structure covering different fields -- managing, neighborhood, film, theater, photography/design, research, more. Pulls content with permission from 59 local "content partners". Registered users can add stories, events, photos, band profiles, lost pet notices, garage sale info. Users' ability to add stories is not particularly highlighted, especially in contrast to some other participatory sites. Users can comment on stories. Some news comes from Topix.
"Hyperlocal": Box on top of page where registered users who enter their addresses receive "headlines and events in a tight radius around your home."
Registered users can also customize their home pages based upon their reading habits -- good example of relinquishing editorial control.
Some advertising is local. For example, the lost pet section has a banner for Adopt A Dallas Pet. Some, oddly, is of the "save on your RX" variety.
A feature called the "Daily You" presents news that is geographically relevant across generic site sections ("business," "sports" ...)
Bought by Fisher Communicatons in 2008.
Classic examples: Slate and Salon. Huffington Post is more recent. (from pages 6-7 of A Typology for Media Organizations)
- http://www.askmen.com/ solicits freelance material
- http://slate.com
- http://salon.com
- http://huffingtonpost.com
- The Root. http://theroot.com Af am. target. Owned by Wash Post. Not user generated. [started by Henry Louis Gates]
- Local digital "newspapers" with organized funding, ex: http://www.metromodemedia.com/ and cousins
Local news. A "portal to community goods and services." Content is divided by design into news from affiliated local newspapers, news from local businesses & organizations, and user-submitted stories and blogs. Members can post comments on all sections of the site, including "bizBriefs" and "bizOffers", which are posted by local businesses on subjects like the day's dinner specials.
8000 unique visitors a day. http://www.villagesoup.com/about/
Solo Journalists (SOJOs)
Kevin Sites - http://www.kevinsites.com -well-known SOJO for Yahoo! News
Vagabond Reporters International - http://vagabondreporters.com -young freelance foreign reporters operating mostly out of Burma. One of the co-founders had story run on front page of WAPO after cyclone last month. -Can also be categorized as an agency??
Hanson Hosein - http://www.hrhmedia.com/page3/page11/page11.html -Canadian reporter who left producer job at NBC for entry-level SOJO position in rural Canada. He now teaches multimedia reporting at the University of Washington. We can look at Hosein himself or CBC program as case study.