Homegrown hyperlocal

[Matt Neznanski]

Banging the hyperlocal drum isn't anything new, but the big problem I've had with it is that as a reporter, chicken-dinner news is -- frankly -- a bore.
I do subscribe to the notion that the workings of government, grassroots advocacy and local characters all add up to an understanding of the formal "living in a city" coverage that a news organization should report. But when it comes to little details, it can turn "beat reporter" into a declarative statement.
So when I read this report from the founders of myballard.com, a hyperlocal blog about a neighborhood in Seattle, I found myself suddenly perking up.
Catch this:

In effect, we don’t “cover” the neighborhood, we “moderate” it. Users are our eyes and ears, and we provide a layer of journalism over the top, confirming stories before we post them.

So it's just like running a newsroom, but the reporters are living the story. Objective? Probably not. Does it matter? Probably not.
Later in the comments, another Seattle neighborhood blogger chimed in with some interesting figures:

In our case, we reach more homes/businesses each week than the local weekly paper’s stated circulation … 14,000 us (consistently, per G-Analytics), 12,000 them (per 2007 Washington Newspaper Publishers Association numbers available online).

Listening now?
Here's where an attentive traditional news organization can really add to the mix by following the conversation and getting involved when the citizen journos need some help or when the story gets interesting to a wider market.
On a related note, I've started to qualify my use of the word "blog" in conversations within my newsroom. To me, a blog is both a platform (as in a quick-to-set-up but powerful CMS) and as a tool for engaging readers. (See Beatblogging.org for details.)
Curmudgeons still see blogs as nothing but disgruntled losers in pajamas and they do so at their own peril: MyBallard.com and their ilk are poised to eat backward-thinking news orgs for lunch.

Postscript:
It occurs to me that I'll probably get all the academic moanings about how citizen journalism isn't the same as that done by "pros", how people will start lining up into closed niche communities, blah, blah.
Then I re-read the lostremote post and saw this afresh:

Soon after we moved to the Seattle neighborhood of Ballard last year, my wife Kate reserved MyBallard.com after we noticed there was no daily news source dedicated to the community of 35,000. (Emphasis added)

So put away all that "quality-of-journalism" rhetoric and start retooling the old "there's-no-competition-between-newspapers" saw.

[Jason Molinet]

Anyone who has ever moderated comments on a web site knows you get enough stupid or negative or libellous posts to make you wonder whether comments should be allowed at all.

I'm sure the site gets one of these rants once a week: "My cat has been missing for a week. My neighbor Bob hated that cat. I'm certain he did something to my precious."

And you want to build a news site based on that?