Hyperlocal -- where does it stop?

Exactly. I worked at a weekly last summer as a student and that's what my editor had me do with the crazy gas prices. Everybody knew it was driving up grocery prices somehow and it was affecting farmers' fuel costs -- big staples in that area -- but my editor told me to basically tell the story from the standpoint of the people in the area. Worked really well.

 

I think part of the problem with hyperlocal is that a lot of writers and editors aren't that interested. Even if they're at a small paper, they want to feel as if they play a part in reporting the big national and international news stories. Or the big pro and major college sports.

You have to have a staff that is enthusiastic about local stuff. The same goes for sports. You need writers and editors who are at least as interested in SmallSchool A vs. SmallSchool B volleyball as they are in Steelers-Colts.

 

40K paper I'm familiar with goes with all-local 1A fronts, well kind of.
They put staff and state capitol coverage out front with national and international news inside. In terms of the section, it is local news first, then obits, then the edit page and the back end of the section is filled up with wire coverage.
No one seems to mind it and, in fact, their readership digs it. Every now and then again, big national news goes out front, but it has to be a big deal.
Sports is generally local/state college centerpieces, but national sports news as warranted.
Seems to work and they aren't shedding circ numbers, actually they are up a little.

 

God bless you, sir.

 

I think hyperlocal or whatever you want to call it is a good thing. Newspapers have to be give its readers what they can't get elsewhere -- local news about their community.
However, I'm not a big fan of these blanket decrees that ALL fronts must be local. Having an all-local front is good, but there are national stories that obviously merit front page coverage. We have A LOT of local coverage in our newspaper, but it doesn't mean we won't run national stories that are vital to our readers on the front page.

 

I think the biggest problem that hyperlocal suffers from is that bean counters and publishers, many of whom have scarcely any background in journalism whatsoever, beat the drum for hyperlocal, even when it fails to stem the declining circulation numbers we face.

It's proverbially banging your head against a wall. We keep trying the same tactics that never work because we think the next time is going to be different. The one thing the bean counters (and, honestly, some editors may also be guilty of this as well) never think to do is, you know, give readers stories they care about. That's what I tried to do at my paper.

Hyperlocal doesn't work, period. The sooner we all realize that and act on it, the better off newspapers will be. That is, if the bean counters ever learn one thing from Business 101: You have to spend money and invest in the product to make money or get people to want it.

 

You work for cowardly idiots.

 

Hyperlocal is built on the bogus, focus-group-derived idea that people want to read about their neighbors. They don't. They want to read about themselves. Or their kids. They don't care about the guy down the block. They just say they do because that's the socially acceptable thing to say.

 

So, what do people care about? And if they don't care about their community, why do we all have jobs?

 

As long as it stops there, I can live with it.

 

There is nothing at all wrong with writing a story about the local swimming team, as long as it is an interesting story about the team or a swimmer.

What was the feature about?

 

What is the AP story we plug onto the front page going to tell Joe Bratwurst that he didn't read yesterday on cnn.com? Hell, there is a good chance it will be the exact same damn story.

Obviously there are exceptions. 9/11, for one, or the start of a war or something. Obviously a hard and fast rule is stupid. But it's hardly a bad idea to follow as often as is reasonably possible. There are 1,000 other places readers will read most wire stories.