Articles

data | Jun 6, 2019

Sobering Reality for News Outlets: Your Readers May Be Elsewhere 99% of the Time

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

Here’s a question for local news producers: What are your readers doing when they’re not visiting you? That’s the question asked by Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center in an eye-opening study of three metro news websites based on data from the media analytics company Comscore. And it’s a particularly relevant question because the study showed that the three news sites commanded less than 1 percent of their desktop users’ total digital time. The study, conducted...

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discussion | May 29, 2019

Medill Teams With German Foundation for Global Seminar on Local News

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

The Medill Local News Initiative and Germany’s Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung foundation will host the Global Seminar on Local News, a June conference in Chicago to discuss worldwide challenges to local journalism and their impact on democracy. The seminar will feature presentations by news executives from Bulgaria, Nigeria, Mexico and Germany as well as influential U.S.-based voices on the crisis in local news. The June 24-26 event is invitation-only, but video of the main discussions on June 25...

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design | May 9, 2019

Knight Lab’s Class Brings Design Principles to Local News

by Mark Jacob and Elaine Ramirez

A new Northwestern University class called Design for Local News isn’t trying to make minor tweaks in the current media environment. It’s going straight to the question of what information the public needs and starting there to invent new products. “It’s like a Zen beginner’s mind, a ‘first principles’ sort of thing. Pick your metaphor,” said Associate Professor Zach Wise. As local news outlets suffer from a disrupted business model that has led to widespread...

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Q&A | Apr 23, 2019

Medill’s Franklin on Why Local News Outlets Aren’t Jumping in Apple’s ‘Magic Mixer’

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

The recent launch of Apple News Plus is the biggest test yet for news bundling—the idea of selling access to a wide variety of news sources through one platform at one price. Apple News Plus costs $9.99 a month for more than 300 titles, mostly magazines but also a few newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. In general, local news organizations have not signed on, put off by Apple’s...

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update | Apr 11, 2019

The ‘eHarmony of Political Coverage’ and Other Local News Innovations Medill’s Research on Digital Subscriptions Empowers Newsrooms

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

Here’s a neat trick that other newsrooms might want to steal. During Chicago’s recent election, the Tribune ran a quiz headlined, “Which Chicago mayoral candidate do you align most closely with?” The Tribune got candidates to answer a set of 14 questions, and then readers were invited to answer the same questions and learn which politician they were most in synch with. The feature served multiple purposes: educating readers on the candidates, helping readers focus their...

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data | Apr 1, 2019

USC’s Crosstown Project Turns Big Data into Local News

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

Gabriel Kahn says his data project, Crosstown, delivers “the kind of information that allows citizens to be the squeaky wheel.” Kahn, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism, and his team are developing Crosstown to analyze and publish data on “core quality-of-life issues” such as traffic, crime and air quality. The goal: to make large data sets useful on a local and even hyperlocal level. “Part of it comes from my...

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Design | Mar 19, 2019

Can Local News Websites Shift From Annoying Their Readers to Serving Them? Getting Readers to Pay Will Require More Attention to User Experience

by Jeannette Hinkle | Jenny_Hinkle

The frustrations of local journalists over the presentation of their work on news websites was summed up recently in a tweet by British writer Katie Taylor: Local newspaper journos: Why are we losing so much money? Why don't people read local news?Local newspaper website devs: *adds four pop-ups* *increases page load time to 64 hours* *enables video auto-play* *includes gif adverts in masthead* *changes font to wingdings*— katie (@Shinybiscuit) January 8, 2019 Indeed, too many local news...

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interview | Mar 11, 2019

Local Media Must ‘Re-learn’ How to Engage With Readers, Online News Consultants Say

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

As online news organizations try to pivot to reader revenue models to achieve financial sustainability, a New York-based firm called Piano is among those offering expertise. The Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications interviewed two Piano executives about the shifting media landscape. Michael Silberman, Piano’s Senior Vice President for Strategy, helped launch Vulture.com and TheCut.com and was a founding editor at MSNBC.com. Patrick Appel, Director of...

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