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The Word on the Block: The Rise of Hyper-Local News

What is more interesting: the world economic downturn, or its immediate effect on your neighbourhood?

We at Media140 do not presume to preempt your news consumption choices, but based on our own – perhaps base – preferences, we are betting on the latter.

After a boom in global Internet news which has lasted the best part of a decade, it seems local perspectives have gained a kind of drawing power of which newspapers can only dream.

Nevertheless, magnificent Media140 blogger Peter Bouvier had never heard of hyper-local news until we asked him to look into the rise and rise of borough- and even block-based micro-sites.

Peter discovered that while they represent geographically small districts, hyper-local sites are taking over large tracts of the online news industry.

Peter works as the social media editor for Britain’s National Health Service, has delusions of grandeur and is currently working on a trilogy of epic children’s poems called the Tales of Tikulo.

We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a newsflash.

The monoliths of global and national news organisations are crumbling! Well, okay, that is admittedly not much of a newsflash, since it has been occurring for quite some time. However, it does beg the question; what is replacing them?

The obvious answer would be news sites, blogs, Twitter and links shared on Facebook, but consumers have pushed the real-time Web one step further than that; they have turned it ‘hyper-local’.

A crop of micro-sites, which focus exclusively on community-level stories from geographically small areas, has sprung up worldwide.

From Parisian quarters to New York neighbourhoods, London boroughs to Sydney suburbs, their appearance reflects a movement away from mainstream media news channels to smaller online news aggregators, offering coverage of topics with narrow interest such as local house prices, crime rates and school inspection results.

The shift has been attributed to the increased use of digital media devices and social media, meaning news content is now easier to produce and disseminate by lowly proles – such as myself, perhaps?

As far as community Web sites are concerned, anybody with a camera-phone and a Twitter account is a potential Lois Lane. They are riding the crest of this first-hand journalism, encouraging locals to report on events in their neighbourhood.

So great is their popularity that hyper-local news sites already have their own aggregators. Local People lists some 80 community Web sites across England, from Balham to Yeovil.

“Local People is an opportunity for local business and website owners, and local writers, bloggers, photographers, and organisers of societies and groups to become involved, suggest topics for discussion and help shape the debate,” says the Web site.

Its American equivalent, EveryBlock, has gone further, breaking 15 major cities from Atlanta to Washington DC down into neighbourhoods, streets and even street numbers. It really does what it says on the box.

By visiting this corner of EveryBlock, residents of 600-607 18th Street in Charlotte, North Carolina, can read reports of a suspicious person prowling their block, report a missing pet, or get updates on two new books available at the local library.

Bloggers in Sydney, Australia have begun to experiment with artistic photography and food-based micro-sites, which encapsulate the pictorial or culinary feel of tiny corners of the Australian city. Proprietors of some Sydney speciality blogs reported clicks coming from Mongolia, Iran and North Korea, making the mind boggle with the power of social media to cross cultural divides, and all that.

Detractors may claim that these sites are too insular, too blinkered. In an age when information sharing is easier than ever, surely we should be thinking globally, not locally, they could say.

In my opinion, breaking global events down into local bite-sized chunks gives the hyper-local great appeal. The gap-toothed row of shops to let on *insert street name here* is first hand evidence of the worldwide economic downturn. The local council is making efforts to combat climate change, and businesses are trying to raise funds for Haiti. Hyper-local sites are the true nexus between global events and ordinary citizens.

Traditional media organisations are desperately looking for ways to keep money coming in. The BBC is bowing to massive consumer demand and will soon release news applications for mobile phones. It is no secret that newspapers have suffered huge internet-fuelled losses in revenue and plunging advertising sales.

By contrast, there need not be a question mark over funding for the hyper-local movement, whose online costs are relatively low, and whose bank of volunteer journalists, Web developers and designers is potentially very large. This, coupled with a little advertising revenue from local businesses or backing from readers could be more than enough to keep a non-profit micro-site ticking over.

Spot.Us, serving the San Francisco Bay area, has employed an even more innovative approach to leveraging its value. It lets its readers decide which stories deserve funding. Freelance journalists pitch prospective news stories to the readership, and if they are indeed deemed newsworthy, readers can make a donation – usually $10 or $20 – to pay the journalist to produce it. This donation is then reimbursed in the event that a news organisation buys exclusive rights to the article.

‘The result is that paid journalists are more responsible to their audience’, says Spot.Us director, Steve Cohn.

Some hyperlocal sites now train volunteers in presenting facts and reporting fairly on controversial issues, but there are valid questions about the value and impartiality of content written by any journalist who is entrenched in the community that they are covering.

“I kind of think that argument is moot at this point because it’s happening and there’s less journalistic oversight over what is being distributed and created,” says Jane McDonnell, executive director of the Online News Association.

The financial struggle of big traditional media organisations may be old news, but there is an air of optimism in the hyper-local camp; a feeling that they may be able to offer precisely what consumers seek.

Is this the future of local news? Watch these spaces.