A User-First Framework for Sustaining Local News - Harvard ...

3. PARTNERSHIPS: Initiate an alliance that serves users—but that you wouldn’t
have been comfortable with a few years ago. This might be a partnership with a
competitor, even a government agency. (The only way EveryBlock.com is able to
deliver crime statistics, building permits and restaurant inspections is by
“forg[ing] relationships with governments.”) 161
4. NEW VENTURES: Launch one that serves user needs and generates some
significant revenue for your organization. Consider staging a community event
on a topic much in the news, and generating revenue with the sponsorship of a
local advertiser.
5. CROWDFUNDING: Invite contributions from users for a story your newsroom
budget would have left uncovered. You could seek a partnership with Spot.Us
to help with issues of tracking, collecting and transparency.
6. CROWDSOURCING: Enlist users to report a story your organization couldn’t
have told on its own. At year’s end, the Public Insight Network was seeking
user input on the question of why so many young people are leaving rural
Minnesota—and what might be done about it. 162 What’s a similar issue in your
community that lends itself to distributed or networked reporting? Are potholes
an issue on local streets? SeeClickFix will partner with you to help users
spotlight such problems on interactive maps—and invite relevant city
departments to join the conversation as you hold them accountable. 163
7. CONVERT “WORTHLESS” TRAFFIC TO “WORTH SOMETHING”:
Experiment with content aggregation in a way that will drive traffic and ad
revenue from inside or outside your market, on your own or with an ad
network.
8. ASK FOR HELP: After the Ann Arbor News announced it was closing, the paper
interviewed a reader, financial advisor Rob Pollock, who said he wished the
paper had done a better job informing readers of its dire finances. Could Pollock
have saved the paper if only he’d known? Not likely. Could he and other users
help sustain journalism going forward through donations? Perhaps. Check out
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