Recent Stories with tag news

Every time I read a story like TIME's "Are Hyperlocals Replacing Traditional Newspapers?", my first reaction is generally a little thrill of recognition at seeing Tracy Record's name.

Seattle's hyperlocal scene (and social media mavenry for that matter) is the envy of the nation, and West Seattle Blog, as a more-than-full-time, news-breaking enterprise is the stuff of future HBR case studies. A six-figure revenue stream in the placeblog space? 750,000 page views per month?

But on the other hand--as Record would be the first to tell you--this is a dog bites man story. Listen to TIME characterize hyperlocal content: "Hyperlocal sites also frequently publish upbeat accounts of parades and high school sports, as well as information on which local vendors sell the best produce. Recent headlines on Record's site noted a 'mega-low' tide and an upcoming garden tour."

What does that sound like? TIME sums it up for you: "Record sits in her living room reinventing the role of an old-school newspaper editor." Reinventing may be stretching it: Record is swimming with the online current, rather than against it, but she's a journalist-editor in the mold of many newshounds who came before her.

West Seattle Blog is a local newspaper that's not printed on newspaper, but otherwise, what's different is a question of degree, rather than kind. It's supported by local advertisers: insurance and real estate agents, yoga and massage practitioners, car repair shops and dog-walkers (thanks to "Sales Guy," co-publisher, and husband, Patrick Sand). Its online presence makes community-driven (and -supplied) stories that much easier, but news tips are not new. The WSB forum fills in for classifieds, and augments reader contributions.

Record is fond of reminding people that a blog is just a delivery system. It would be a huge mistake to focus solely on the platform, and overlook the veteran, up-all-night journalist who knocks out stories on the hour. Coming from broadcast journalism, Record seems to have had zero fetishistic attachment to ink-smudged sheets; if there's media (video, audio, social) she hasn't leveraged in her quest to connect readers with WSB, please drop her a line, she'd love to hear about it....

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"The local angle really does get people's interest," said Michael McCarthy, editor, publisher and et al of the Seattle Local Health Guide. He's a slender, bearded man with a warm manner and it's not all that surprising to learn he's an M.D. himself, trained in internal medicine by Virginia Mason.

His online health guide currently devotes a section to H1N1 flu developments, another to health advice and tips, another to healthcare industry news. It's attracting about 25,000 readers per month--all the flu news has pushed numbers up ever since May, and once people find the site, they come back. The initial site was born in 2007, and reborn a year ago in its Wordpress incarnation.

It may be time, McCarthy admitted a little ruefully, to work harder on the site's revenue stream. Like many people who have founded a news site, he's driven primarily by the sense that it's a public necessity.

Michael McCarthy

McCarthy writes stories himself, and aggregates health industry and policy news from sources like Kaiser Health News and ProPublica. "There are more than enough stories out there," he emphasized. He likes to follow a story's real-time transmission, from a World Health Organization H1N1 conference, to the CDC presser hours later, to a public announcement the next day by Madrona's public schools about their flu policy.

"Part of what's valuable is just finding what's good that's available," he added. Health care news that hasn't caught mainstream interest is out there, but it's chasing too few reporting resources.

His imaginary "reader" is a mom staying educated on health care, but in practice, the site casts a much wider net. McCarthy points out that King County total employment in the health care sector rivals Boeing's. Recently he's begun working with the Seattle Times, which has, thanks to a grant from American University's J-Lab (via the Knight Foundation), started exploring content collaboration with local bloggers....

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