My Online Publication

My publication is going to focus on the very content Joe Mathews laments is missing from the new LA Times. My staff is going to hone in on hyperlocal stories, so Mathews won't be able to spend an entire article whining about our paper. My reporters will tackle the issues he says are missing in his beloved Times, (small neighborhood stories, transportation issues, local law enforcement dilemmas, etc.) The Internet will also give me a chance to gag readers' complaints before they appear. Mathews went on and on about all the missing news opportunities with a condensed staff. Yes, my staff is going to be quite small, too. In fact, we will employ far fewer employees than the Times. However, as I discussed in my last blog entry, my publication will be able to link to many of the stories we did not get a chance to personally cover. This should appease Mathews.

I did manage to pull one good idea from Mathews' painfully nostalgic trip down memory lane. My staff will have to include several bilingual reporters like Connie Kang. This will allow my publication to tackle a wider array of issues, and include interviews with individuals who often get overlooked in the media.

The ideas I presented last week about a subscription service should soothe Peter Osnos worries about the bleak future of news. I did enjoy the comparison Osnos made between America's failing banks and crumbling newspapers. The government springs into action to save dying banks and the troubled auto-industry, as our nation's newspaper wither away without any assistance. The future of the newspaper now falls in the hands of advertisers and generous readers who wish to subscribe or make contributions. If users have a strong desire to read well-produced news content and directly interact with reporters, my publication should succeed. As I mentioned before, for a set annual rate, my online publication will offer access to thousands of archives, and an opportunity for readers to suggest future stories.

For me, the main idea that stuck out of David Folkenflik's article was the overall sense of community that can be established by a trusted local paper. My publication will do everything it can to earn our readers' trust and respect. We need to connect with our audience and cover the smaller stories that other publications will skip over. We need to report on local basketball stories and address educational concerns at local elementary schools. These issues would never be covered in the New York Times or on the CNN network. Our whole town might not even make the national news unless it caught on fire or made contact with alien invaders. Still, we need to let this town know that their stories and problems are as important to our paper as they are to the community. We will cover local meetings and sporting events with the same vigor and intensity we would use to cover a deadly wildfire on the West Coast.We need to reach out to our local readers and let them know they have a voice. We must let our users know that they are both seen and heard and that no story is too small. Our reporters will attend school-board meetings and occupy the bleachers at all local sporting events. We will connect with the community, because we will become part of the community. In doing so, our readers will want to wake up and drink coffee while perusing our news site.