Citizen journalism is the latest Internet-aided opportunity for media entrepreneurs who don't want anything to do with traditional media companies. It's not difficult to start up a hyper-local news operation with no corporate backing, and even with very little money in the bank. This is the sort of thing that anyone can create.
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The greatest opportunity for independent citJ sites may be in communities that are underserved by traditional media -- for instance, a small town that has only a weekly newspaper and no TV station; or a suburb that is covered feebly by its nearby metro newspaper; or a town so small that there's no local media whatsoever; or a university or college with student media that's simply not up to snuff.
The citizen-news Web site Coastsider is a great example of this sort of opportunity. It was started by Barry Parr, a media consultant by trade but a non-journalist, who lives in coastal San Mateo County, Calif., an area served only by a weekly community newspaper and covered sparingly by big media outlets in the nearby San Francisco Bay Area.
Parr was discouraged by the minimal coverage of local news in his community -- and by having to wait for the weekly newspaper to come out to learn what was going on -- so he founded Coastsider as a citJ-oriented Web site where his neighbors could share their news. Parr moonlighted from his primary career to write and report for his Web site. In time, the site became more interactive, with community members contributing more -- but Parr still creates much of the content, spending about two hours a day on the site.
Parr recently accepted a full-time job as a media analyst for Jupiter Research, working from home, but he thinks that working on Coastsider has the potential to be a decent part-time job. He estimates that if he were to sell most of the ad availability on his community site, it would bring in around $2,000 a month. That's serving a community of 30,000 people, with a readership of about 2,000 people a week.
Parr said he thinks that if he decided to take Coastsider seriously and turn it into a full-time job, he would expect it to take another two or three years. That would mean going out into the community and selling advertising, trying to get core sponsorships from businesses in key categories: a local Realtor, grocery store, etc. For now, all the site's ads have come in over the transom; with his career responsibilities, Parr doesn't have time to be an ad salesman.
In a recent Wall Street Journal article by Lee Gomes, "Community Web Sites Explore How to Sustain Themselves Financially," the reporter quoted an (unnamed) New York financier who's investigating the citizen-media space. The financier estimated that the revenue potential for a citJ Web site in a small community (like Parr's) is around $4,000 a month. While that's not a lot, it does represent a career opportunity for a journalist who wants to work on his or her own and build a small media business. In the old days, such people would have founded a weekly hometown newspaper.
Journalistic skills are helpful
While you don't have to be a working journalist to run a citJ local-news Web site, as Parr demonstrates, it doesn't hurt to have a journalism background. A successful citJ-oriented site called Baristanet (a.k.a. Barista of Bloomfield Ave.), which serves Essex County, N.J., was founded by Debbie Galant, longtime New Jersey columnist for The New York Times. Up the coast, the citJ site WestportNow, serving the upscale Connecticut town, was founded by Gordon Joseloff, a former United Press International and CBS News journalist.
Both Baristanet and WestportNow are examples of small citJ-driven Web sites that have grown to be significant (albeit small) local media players in their communities. Both have had some success in large part, it seems, because their founders led the way with their own local reporting and content creation, patiently waiting for community members to catch on and become content contributors themselves.
Barista is written and edited by Galant and another journalist, Liz George, and serves three nearby towns in northern New Jersey. It operates on a very simple business model, accepting ads from local businesses -- but, at this point, does not actively go out to sell them. The site doesn't use online ad networks. It has grown enough in traffic and gotten so visible in the towns it serves that "most ads come to us," Galant says. Ads on the site range in price from $75 to $500 a month, depending on placement. A tiny amount of money comes from charging for classified ads, and Google AdSense revenues (from contextual text ads appearing on the site, served by Google) account for another few dollars coming in.
A low-cost technique to drive traffic and community participation is holding contests. Barista gets gift certificates donated by local grocery stores, restaurants, etc., and holds contests to give them away to site users. It's cheap advertising for the merchants and a free marketing tool for the site to firm up audience relationships and bring in new readers.
Barista is a part-time job (20-30 hours a week) for Galant, George, and business manager Laura Eveleth. Galant and George are both working on books, which precludes making Barista a full-time career.
At WestportNow, the model is likewise a simple one. The site sells ads to local businesses, accepts national ads as part of ad networks like BlogAds and Tribal Fusion, and gets some revenue from Google AdSense.
In terms of local advertising, founder Joseloff says the most promising areas for his site include retailers, auto dealers, home improvement and businesses targeting schools and sports. He also cites such revenue streams as selling photos online (WestportNow is a citJ site that emphasizes community photography) and eventually offering premium content for a fee.
Westport does not have a daily newspaper, only weeklies, so there's a niche for breaking local news and local news photography that the Web site can fill. Residents are hungry for more local news. And Joseloff thinks the site can serve Westport's diaspora well.
Joseloff actually has backed away from his creation, because last November he was elected Westport's mayor. He is now in a Michael Bloomberg-like position of retaining a business interest in WestportNow, but disengaging himself from all editorial functions for obvious conflict-of-interest reasons. He and his successors are happy with their success so far, though, and hope to replicate the WestportNow model in other neighboring communities, create a small regional network of local citJ sites and turn it into a viable business.
Galant and George, likewise, are eyeing neighboring towns for Barista-like Web sites to serve those communities. Since the Barista model seems to be working well, it makes sense to expand, though no specific immediate plans have been made.
Galant also likes the idea of establishing similar citJ-driven Web sites to cover hobbies or interests of people within a specific region. A regional citJ network, for example, could also operate a series of sites covering special interests -- say, quilters of northern New Jersey or sailors in Westport. That's an alternative to expanding a citJ Web site into other regional communities: Stick to the home community with an overall local-news citJ site, but add on local citJ-driven special-interest and hobby sites exclusive to the community.
Crystal ball-gazing
If I had to predict how this will play out, I'd expect successful local citJ sites to expand into regional citJ networks. Then the most successful, highest-quality networks will get gobbled up by those attempting to build national citJ networks.
Of course, individual sites could get gobbled up, too. Parr say he has not yet been approached by anyone to join a citJ network -- and he doubts he would join, since he's satisfied with the technology he has, and wants to keep 100 percent ownership of his Coastsider citJ site. But he says he would consider it, probably, if a news organization like the San Francisco Chronicle wanted to partner. (Even that would require that he retain ownership, he says.)
Another possible trend: segmentation of citJ initiatives covering racial groups within a city or town -- for instance, a citJ site specifically for blacks, Hispanics and Jews in New York City (or even neighborhoods within the city).
And, of course, expect to see fast growth in citJ Web sites and networks devoted to people's passions, hobbies and interests rather than physical location.
CORRECTION: The original version of this article misspelled Gordon Joseloff's name, reported an incorrect timeframe for Joseloff's election as mayor and incorrectly described Westport as a city as opposed to a town. (April 8, 2006)
