This website is an initiative of J-Lab
This website is an initiative of J-Lab
This research, tracking the conception, launch and first year of a community media site was produced by Doug Fisher, an instructor at the University of South Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communications, who partnered with the twice-a-week Hartsville Messenger. The project was funded by a J-Lab New Voices grant. Hartsville Today: The first year of a small-town citizen-journalism siteBy Doug Fisher, Instructor USC School of Journalism and Mass Communications
The Hartsville Messenger, a twice-a-week newspaper with a staff of five, has its hands full trying to cover an area of about 20,000 people around Hartsville, S.C. So in 2005-06 it partnered with the University of South Carolina to launch a web site both to give its staff a place to publish community news more quickly and to give the community a place for some citizen-generated content. The effort was funded by J-Lab’s New Voices project. They came up with HartsvilleToday.com - plus a 72-page “cookbook” (see Resources box on the right) that details what they did and how they did it, sprinkled with advice from their learning curve. While it’s a guide for small daily and non-daily newspapers, the lessons apply to anyone seeking to start up a community news project. Some Do’s
Key Choices
“This project is vitally important to smaller papers because if newspapers don’t ‘get there first’ in the communities we serve, you can be sure someone else will.” Contents
Executive summary
Site design, programming and content by Hop Studios. 
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