Yessi Bello continues the Hyperlocal Voices series with an interview with JesmondLocal‘s Ian Wylie, who decided to dabble in local journalism after taking voluntary redundancy from a national newspaper. Still viewed as a “pro-bono”, ” good thing to do” Jesmond Local has now become an integral part of the Jesmond Community.

1)Who were the people behind the blog, and what where their backgrounds?

After 15 years working for The Guardian as a reporter, features writer and finally section editor, I took voluntary redundancy in 2009, and began thinking about what I would do with the next chapter of my career. I’d been involved mostly in national newspaper and magazine journalism, so local journalism was something I hadn’t dabbled in before.

The concept of “hyperlocal” fascinated me as an area for me to explore and an opportunity for me also to “give something back”. I discovered that Newcastle University lecturer David Baines had a research interest in the subject. We met to discuss and he suggested I offer some of his students the chance to launch a hyperlocal website, which we did almost exactly a year ago.

I view Jesmond Local, at the moment, as a “pro-bono” “good thing to do”. I don’t make any money from it (yet) and have to juggle the time I spend on it with my freelance writing for the Financial Times, Guardian, easyJet, Monocle and Management Today.

2) When did you set up the blog and how did you go about it?

My background is newspapers, so I approached it from the viewpoint of, if I was one of the local newspaper pioneers transported into the future to 2010, what would I do? How would I best serve the interests of a small community like Jesmond (population 10,000). And since my background is news, I felt that news had to be at the core of what we do. That “news” would provide the “stickiness” that kept readers coming back.

I found a relevant WordPress theme called “The Local” and starting by posting straightforward 200-word news stories. As time has gone on we’ve expanded our news story-telling into slideshows, video, podcasts, live blogs etc. We’ve added a local events diary, a discussion forum and, of course, a Facebook fan page and Twitter service.

3) What other blogs, bloggers or websites influenced you?

I had a look at all the usual UK hyperlocal sites that get a lot of press, and also at some in the US and Europe (I liked the idea of the cafe-newsroom approach at Nasa Adresa… before it shut).

But to be honest I haven’t taken too much notice of what other people have done because a) hyperlocals tend to be made in the likeness of their creators and b) the reasons a hyperlocal succeeds or fails depend to a large degree on the nature of the community they serve. No two journalists and no two communities are alike!

4) How did – and do – you see yourself in relation to a traditional news operation?

I don’t see JesmondLocal as running in competition with the local, traditional news outlets. It serves as an accompaniment. If I thought we were giving Jesmond people something they could already get elsewhere then, believe me, I wouldn’t be doing this!

I think we’re the same in the sense that (I hope) we have the same commitment to good, principled news values. But whereas I think traditional news organisations see hyperlocal as a sticking plaster for their commercial woes, I hope hyperlocal sites like JesmondLocal are about creating and strengthening community in places like Jesmond. There’s lots going on already in Jesmond, but the community needs to know about it if those events, clubs and activities are going to flourish and succeed.

A steady flow of information about what’s going on/available in the community might also encourage and inspire other people to get involved and/or create their own community projects. So it’s about sustaining communities.

And I think we’re also different in the way we aim to sustain local journalism. I’m acutely aware that young, aspiring journalists don’t have the same opportunities for on-the-job training that I did 20 years ago. So by taking on 20 or so student volunteers each academic year, JesmondLocal tries to help would-be journalists learn and refine their skills at a local level.

I’m also excited about helping other people in the Jesmond community do the same thing – and pass on to them the important skills of news-gathering, reporting, writing, producing etc.

My next challenges are two-fold: I need to make it financially sustainable, which means getting local businesses to pay for advertising and other services, and explore possible funding options.

And secondly, I want to get the community more involved in generating and creating the content. I feel the balance is a little too “top down” at the moment, rather than coming from the local people for whom the site has been created.

5) What have been the key moments in the blog’s development editorially?

So far the key developments editorially have been our media sponsorship of the local community festival, which introduced us to the people who run all the different community groups in Jesmond; the May local elections, during which we ran our own live-blogged hustings, which introduced us to the political movers and shakers of Jesmond; an ongoing “local heroes” project which is helping us become more confident in our film-making skills; and our breaking of small, but locally significant stories, such as the arrival of a new Waitrose in Jesmond.

From my traditional, newspaper background I’m also beginning to understand how news can be communicated in many different ways. For example, some days our news-reporting is all done in tweets.

6) What sort of traffic do you get and how has that changed over time?

To be honest, I don’t look at our Google Analytics too often, but daily uniques range from 50 to 300. We tend to get the biggest spike when I send out an email newsletter. I’ve discovered (to my cost) that offline advertising is very ineffective.

PHP Freelancer

Paid content online is a dead end, say the founders of Rue89 and Demotix.

-If you want people to buy your content, you need to provide a lot of added value and that is very expensive. The paid content will never cover you expenses, says Pierre Haski, one of the founder of the French online-only news site Rue89.

Online Journalism Blog follows the Digital News Affairs conference in Brussels, and going to media conferences can be quite depressive these days. Even more refreshing then to hear the founders of Rue89 and Demotix with some fresh and brave ideas for the future. Demotix is a brand new citizen-journalism website and photo agency, started in January 2009 by Turi Munthe and Jonathan Tepper. Rue89 was started by four blogging journalists from Le Liberation in 2007. Rue89 has today 20 staffers, an impressive achievement for a journalism startup.

- The old media world is crumbling, and you can’t use the old methods for new media world, says Haski.

Common for the two websites are interesting combinations of business models. Both of them started with “love money”, investments from friends and family. Rue89 is now, in addition to external investements, combining three revenue resources: online training for journalists, building websites (for NGOs, etc) and a new “wall” with micro advertising. Haskin says Rue89 is hoping to earn money next year. Demotix is still brand new, but they have already signed subscription agreements with several mainstream media for image delivery. At this point, Demotix has 3500 citizen journalists contributing images from more than 90 countries.

- We’ve experienced that it is easier to sell images from citizen journalists to mainstream media then text, says Munthe.

The ever shrinking foreign desks in international media was one of the reasons behind the creation of Demotix. According to journalist Nick Davies and his book, Flat Earth News, only four of the American newspapers have a foreign desk, the rest relay on Reuters, AP and a few other newswires.

- Journalists are not where it happens. Everyone is copying the newswires, says Munthe.

- As one of very few agencies, we could provide images from the war in Gaza, because we had local people shooting pictures for us, Egyptians and Israelis. They were competing among themselves to contribute  the best pictures, says Munthe.

The blogging journalists at Liberation could have tried to change things from inside the newspaper, but they decided to start from scratch with Rue89. For them, Rue89 was a way out of two crisis – the general economic crisis within media and the lack of trust from readers.

- Internet was a way to bypass those two crisis. We work for full transparency and to develop a community with our readers. When we managed to raise 1,1 million euros last year, we had a two day long debate with our readers in order to reassure them that we would stay independent from our investors. The community is our best asset, and they can defend our company. For me, this is huge and very positive change. I’ve worked in traditional journalism for 26 years and was used to readers who didn’t trust journalists. Now, I work at a place where people are happy to interact with journalists, says Haski.

Both founders are strong believers in quality journalism, and are sure new and stable business models will develop.

- I believe there is room for high quality journalism, both online and print. It is completely silly that online content is only quick and of low quality, says Haski.

- I also have hope for print. Just take a look at Monocle and see what they’ve been able to develope, adds Munthe.

PHP Freelancer