E-Media Tidbits

I've been doing some research for an upcoming package of articles about business models to support citizen journalism (coming soon), and the other day I interviewed Barry Parr, sole proprietor of "citJ" website Coastsider, which serves the San Mateo coast in California. I'll report on his site in detail when my articles are done, but I heard something interesting from him that I'd like to pass along now.

Coastsider has found some success as an alternative news source for the small communities in the area, which are served only by a weekly newspaper, and covered sparingly by the San Francisco Bay Area metro newspapers. This is a one-man operation, and Parr does it in spare time away from his day job as a media analyst for Jupiter Research. (He works from his home office in Montara.) There's not enough revenue coming in for it to be his main career, but he's also not taken the effort yet to seek advertising -- it's come in over the transom -- or hire a part-time ad salesperson.

What surprised me is that no one from the Bay Area media nor from any of the local-news-focused blogging networks has talked to Parr about partnering or affiliating in some way. What we've got right now are a bunch of independent editor/publishers using the principles of ctiJ to cover their small towns -- which often are communities underserved or not served at all by traditional media. These are small operations, to be sure; there's not much money involved yet (though I think there's potential).

So, if you're a Bay Area newspaper, for instance, and your coverage of a nearby small community is close to non-existent (except when a major story breaks there), wouldn't it make sense to consider allying with a citJ operation that is providing local news from that community? (Alternatively, you could set up your own competing citJ operation to cover the community -- though that could be difficult if someone like Parr already has gained some traction and visibility in the community.)

Perhaps this will happen eventually. I can't help but think that perhaps for now, most mainstream news organizations are still too skittish about the concept of citJ to ally themselves with independent citJ publishers who might not meet traditional journalism standards.