ULTRA-LOCAL NEWS: AN EXCELLENT REPORT THAT WILL INSPIRE YOU

Good news from Hartsville, South Carolina (USA).

Douglas J. Fisher, an Instructor at the University of South Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communications and Graham Osteen, Publisher of The Hartsville Messenger, wrote this excellent report about the first year of a small-town citizen-journalism site.

A very good guide especially for small daily and non-daily newspapers.

What they are doing is just an experiment on ultra-local news that can be, and it will, repliclated in many market, including bigger ones.

Douglas Fisher, co-author of this reports says in his blog:

"For almost a year, the Hartsville Today citizen journalism project has been running and growing, one of the few such experiments aimed specifically at smaller papers without many resources (in this case, a twice-weekly).

When we started it with funding from J-lab, we promised a "cook book" that would give other smaller papers considering such projects a road map of what to expect and how to handle some of the challenges.

The report is done and now available. Feel free to download it. It's a 1 Mb PDF that covers everything from the multitude of early decisions about design and content to the rigors of getting people involved, sales and the technical aspect."

Good job!