Don’t go it alone: Consider alliances with other media
Some citizen media editors think a good way to get off the ground (and cover the ground) is to partner with other media or community resources.
If you like the idea of forming alliances, look no further than Twin Cities Daily Planet, a self-described “community newswire and syndication service,” which lists nearly 50 media partners. The Daily Planet, which targets Minnesota’s Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, is published by the Twin Cities Media Alliance.
Content providers range from neighborhood newspapers to Minnesota dailies, says Managing Editor Mary Turck, who devotes about 25 hours a week to the project. Other resources include independent news stations, blogs and ethnic media (she is particularly proud of picking up a major breaking story from Hmong Today). Turck also reaches out to community organizations and e-forums.
“Go with the flow.”
— Mary Turck
Twin Cities Daily Planet
Original content — that developed fresh solely for the site — makes up only about 10 percent of the material on the site. Partnerships count.
“Flexibility is the No. 1 message” to share with aspiring CitJ editors, Turck says. “We have partners who have Web sites, we have others who have PDFs and publish once a month … Go with the flow.”
Step-by-step guide
But there are a few steps involved. Turck outlines how the Daily Planet deals with the mechanics of identifying and developing partners:
- Define your reach and mission. “A good first step is to design … what the coverage is,” Turck says. “If it is based more on geography, look at who is already reporting and see how amenable they are to work together” with citizen media partners.
- Survey “who else is out there. Pick up the free newspapers in the neighborhoods.”
- Be the online home for others. “More often, we found people, organizations and newsletters that don’t have a good online presence.”
- Decide whether there can be a two-way relationship with media partners. “What can you give, and what do you need to get from those places? Are you going to have content they can use? Do they only want help in advertising? Do they only want help online?”
- Prepare a written agreement.
The formal way
Twin Cities Media Alliance uses this document (in Microsoft Word format) to clarify its content-sharing relationships. That agreement follows an e-mail pitch the Twin Cities Daily Planet sends out to prospective media partners.
The e-mail clearly outlines the relationship, includes packets of examples, and establishes the site’s mission.
Turck sees value in all of the efforts, some of which she sees as a direct response to the “slash-and-burn” of traditional media newsrooms. In other words, with newsrooms cutting journalists, she sees a hole that citizen journalists can help fill.
“We are focusing on St. Paul because it is undercovered,” she says, “and we are mentoring people through the process.”
The w-a-a-a-y less formal way
Travel about 700 miles southeast of St. Paul, to some villages called Coolville and Tuppers Plains, in Athens County, Ohio, and the process is quite different.
Same goal — create local content for a community that doesn’t have it. Different method. “You should understand that this community isn’t one in which ‘partnership’ is a strong concept,” writes Bill Reader, assistant professor in the journalism school at Ohio University, and faculty liaison to the community news project.
The first big change is that the local product, the Route 7 Report, is on paper. The Web site was mostly “abandoned” in a community with few high-speed connections and where residents are older and lower income, he says. Plus, Reader says, residents think print is more authentic and takes more thought.
Reader describes the Route 7 Report as a monthly local newsletter for four rural townships and two villages, produced by volunteers. It is mailed to about 1,700 homes and businesses; printing is done 25 miles away.
‘Ad hoc’ partnerships
Reader describes the local structure best in his own words:
Reader has spread the net wide looking for folks to lend a hand, enlisting the Tuppers Plains postmaster both as a contributor and adviser. “A native of the community and a descendent of the community founders, the postmaster has helped us learn the ins and outs of bulk mailing in a small rural community,” Reader says. “She also writes the occasional article for the newsletter (on postal issues, of course), and advises us on the best way to save money and reach the most households. It isn’t a formal partnership, but rather a neighborly cooperation.”
“In the end, these projects must reflect their communities as they are, not as volunteers want them to be.”
— Bill Reader
Route 7 Report
Route 7 Report managers also have found a way to use community relationships to smooth printing and distribution issues for the print version. “Ours is a small job &mdash (the printers) make very little profit off of it — but because some of their employees live in the community, they work with us as much as they work with any other regular customer. “We have arranged for e-mail delivery of our files (which they generally don’t accept), have negotiated pre-press approval (which they generally require), and free delivery of the printed newsletters — the sales rep of the printer drops them off as part of his weekly rounds.”
Best method?
Clearly you need to define your relationships by your community’s zeitgeist, and, as CitJ experts say, roll with the times. “In the end, these projects must reflect their communities as they are, not as volunteers want them to be,” Reader says.
“I have long believed, and now believe more than ever, that media can’t change communities, but rather should change with communities.”