Why Hyperlocal News is Better Than Ever. (Street Fight,8/25/2011)
Excerpt: Hyperlocal news is on the threshold of a period of impressive achievement. I’m not talking about revisiting the wishful thinking of the previous decade, when we were regaled with dithyrambics about “grassroots” and “citizen” journalism. I am talking about what is actually happening—site by site, community by community, day by day. Add everything up, and you have a steadily growing number of sites that are innovating to find and produce quality news covering a myriad of topics. This added-value news is reaching and engaging more people, thanks principally to the giant leaps by social media. The best hyperlocals are becoming the X factor in the networked civic renaissance that communities need to emerge stronger from their trying economic times.
Many of the best hyperlocal were created by social-minded entrepreneurs — WestSeattleBlog, Sacramento Press, WestportNow, The Batavian, The Alternative Press, TheDavidsonNews, Baristanet, Brownstoner, ARLNow, SeeClickFix. But big media is also making progress figuring out how to generate quality news in the hyperlocal space: Tribune Co.’s TribLocal, GateHouseMedia’s Wicked Local, Boston Globe’s YourTown, LJ World’s WellCommons, MainStreetConnect and — yes — even AOL’s Patch.
Patch in Wisconsin. Hudson is the only location outisde of the Greater Milwaukee area.
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