The country’s weekly papers, thriving in niches overlooked and under served by metro dailies — or geographically isolated — are a huge step ahead as the news industry struggles to put the free content genie back in the bottle.
In a recent article for Digital Media Buzz - Weeklies winning war on web content — I explored how small-town papers are faring amid the general meltdown of the newspaper industry as a whole.
“The picture is much different at community papers, with their deep ties to the grass roots of their communities, a general refusal to give away their core content for free, and already-operational digital delivery models. Overall, these newspapers are in good financial health, and are holding firm on circulation — in some cases, even growing.”
While the small-town papers tend to be a generation behind on use of the latest digital distribution techniques, the situation may well play in their favor if the Kindle DX model gains traction for papers.
Perhaps the greatest strength of the hometown paper, though, is that it was “social media” before we had a term for it. A strong weekly, such as the Wilson County News or the North Scott Press is the touchstone for community identity, a record of life, death, fish fries, honor rolls and all of the things that make a difference to residents, but exist far below the radar of metro dailies.
These papers always depended on community-built content, much of it hand-carried through the Main Street entrance where the editor/publisher might take it personally. And the smarter small papers are using Web 2.0 tools to great effect — with Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube — gathering greater amounts of user content for reverse publishing. “Hyperlocal” is back on the hot buzzword list (evidently it’s on a five-year cycle), and smart weeklies are already there, with a full arsenal.
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