To succeed going forward, local newspapers need to treat local news as a vertical product.
Newspapers, traditionally, are horizontal, serving many interests and needs with a single product.
Web sites need to be more singularly focused.
Look at the way Glam.com now owns the fashion vertical, or how American Idol has create a vertical for own product that now covers multiplatforms (TV, the Web, CDs, books, concert tours, mobile phones, etc.).
Local newspapers should aim for the same ownership of local news and information across multiplatforms, and especially dive deep on the Web -- breaking news, video, community participation, databases, classifieds, IYP, and every thing else a publisher, editor or content producer can think of to ensure complete ownership of local. That's what hyperlocal really means.
The last thing you should do is outsource community participation. You need to own your relationships with your best customers -- your readers and your contributors, the people in the local community that make it what it is -- a community. Letting another company own that relationship is a strategic mistake of monumental proportions.
That's why Media News signing a deal to turn over commenting functions to Topix is just dumb beyond belief.
UPDATE: For clarification, The News-Times was once managed by MediaNews for Hearst and during this period, Topix was incorporated into the online newspaper. Hearst took over control on August of 2008. Wikipedia has a decent write-up on the musical chairs...
04.25.22 (RADIO): WSHU Latino group call on Connecticut lawmakers to open a Danbury charter school
06.03.22 (OP-ED): KUSHNER: "Career Academy ‘a great deal for Danbury"
On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
The amended complaint states that plaintiffs sought to remedy the continued discriminatory and unauthorized enforcement of federal immigration laws against the Latino residents of the City of Danbury by Danbury's mayor and its police department.
Plaintiffs allege that the arrests violated their Fourth Amendment rights and the Connecticut Constitution because defendants conducted the arrests without valid warrants, in the absence of exigent circumstances, and without probable cause to believe that plaintiffs were engaged in unlawful activity. In addition, plaintiffs allege that defendants improperly stopped, detained, investigated, searched and arrested plaintiffs. Plaintiffs also allege that defendants violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights when they intentionally targeted plaintiffs, and arrested and detained them on the basis of their race, ethnicity and perceived national origin. Plaintiffs raise First Amendment, Due Process and tort claims.
Plaintiffs request declaratory relief, damages and attorneys fees.
On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
