It’s often said that the future of journalism will be in the "hyperlocal."
I’ve always had a problem with that word. "Hyperlocal" — as if just regular old local isn’t local enough.
But there is a point to the idea that with a wealth of information and a shrinking world in terms of the exchange of information, the added value that a news organization can have is in covering one’s neighborhood down to a tee.
I think covering issues at the hyperlocal level is fantastic. What better way for journalists to act as watchdogs then to bark in their own backyard?
The problem, however, is that we are still the fourth estate — and the estate has to stay large enough to watch over an entire country.
The good news is: I don’t think it’s impossible to cover issues at the hyperlocal level and still get a national picture of issues, as long as news organizations are willing to work together. This goes against the traditional notion of "the scoop," but imagine hundreds of small news organizations covering the following topics at the hyperlocal level, but also working as a team as part of a larger investigation.
It’s the anti-Kevin Sites approach. Sites is good, but I’ll put my money on a network covering the following topics over him any day.
No Child Left Behind: Cover your local school — but also find out what the change has been across the country.
City Planning/Infrastructure: Here’s the current story:
After the bridge in Minn. fell everyone did the story on America’s
baby-boomer bridges. So why isn’t there a site where I can find ALL the
stories from around the country — each newspaper covering their local
infrastructure and adding it to the pile?
Environmental disaster: Follow the cleanup at your local lake/river. But by sharing how that cleanup is going we can get a better sense of how this country treats its natural resources (oil excluded — which gets plenty of attention).
Teacher’s Tenure: Does it work in your town? How many teachers have tenure vs tenure horror stories?
City Healthcare: Start local and work out from there.
Etc, Etc, Etc.
Got any other stories that can be done easily at the hyperlocal level but if coordinated between several news organizations would add up to an example of distributed reporting? Holla back.
David, I completely agree with you. Your post reminds me of a recent article in the Harvard Business Review of June 2007, “The New Deal at the Top”, which shows that collective rather than individual responsibility can allow companies to become strategically agile. This can be applied to journalism, where the sum of some hyperlocal sites can give a good insight into the big picture in any topic.
K Paul Mallasch has a stub of a site up called LocalJournalism.net – if it developed into a collective of local journalists, we could do this.
Come on, KPaul!