Facing the future of local news

As the Internet continues to erode newspaper readership, clearly the reinvention of journalism will take place on the Web.

However, mainstream media failed during the past 15 years to lead that reinvention because it refused to give up its old advertising business models, and missed the boat on monetizing its content. Other than a few elite publications such as the Wall Street Journal, there is no industry model to charge readers online. And, frankly, the Internet should be a free and open marketplace of ideas. It's impossible to charge for information that could easily be copied and re-posted elsewhere, or – gasp – charge sites to link to the information. That would be like someone telling me a joke, then making me pay them to turn around and re-tell it to someone else. Not gonna happen, folks. (Folks = Dean Singleton and the Associated Press.)

As newspapers fold or severely cut back their newsrooms and original content, large voids of information are going to emerge. Most noticeably, the gaps will be at the hyper-local level. Bare-bones staffs can barely get the paper out, let alone cover all of the news important to the community. And even with citizen journalism, a small staff doesn't have the time to sift through and edit submissions. The editor who took over contributions when I was laid off from The Bakersfield Californian told me the other night that she doesn't even have time to approve online submissions, she's so busy assigning and editing citizen journalism pieces on topics she wants to get into the paper. But approving submissions is as easy as clicking the “post” button in the content management system. The key here is she's so focused on filling the newspaper, she doesn't have time to build community online.

But, the future of local news is online. It's sad to see a once forward-thinking newspaper like The Bakersfield Californian still grasping onto the print product and pulling back on serving its future audience. The void exists for online local news. So if the newspaper isn't going to fill it, who is?

Right now, a fiction writer-turned-journalist, Nick Belardes, is building what very well could be the future of local news in Bakersfield. He launched his Web site, Facebakersfield.com, in November 2008 for less than $100 using the free blogging content management system WordPress and a clean, easy-to-read design. His site focuses on breaking news, sports and nonfiction, and uses content from local bloggers as well as Nick himself covering sporting events and rehashing press releases.

Some local journalists will say that Nick's site is not journalism because his narrative style doesn't just stick to the facts. But I say to them, what is journalism? If you are sharing news and information, are you being a journalist? If your answer is yes, then Nick is a journalist. The tagline on his site is: “Face News: An independent Bakersfield news source.” Local media companies, this is your competition.

Nick and I recently tried to meet for coffee to chat about his site, but logistically it was easier to e-mail him my questions. I also prefer a Q&A format so I don't mince his words. If you're curious about Bakersfield's own one-man-band, read on.

Why did you start Face Bakersfield?

For one, I saw an opportunity to serve the community and I saw a need in the community.

I also write a lot, and have a need to write daily. Using my writing as a means to serve others is important.

I also saw Face News as playing a special role in a long-term plan that revolves around the literary arts. That’s why Face News embeds nonfiction from some of the great writers I know. People like James Michael Blaine from the Deep South and Erika Rae from Colorado have unique voices. Jessica Anya Blau’s novel “The Summer of Naked Swim Parties” was picked as a must read by the “Today Show” as well as receiving other accolades. These are just some of the talented people springing up through our nonfiction section. It’s meant to inspire writers in Bakersfield, to up local creative writing standards, and to jumpstart writing souls so people will say, “I can do that!” or “I can write better that those Irresponsibles” and then do it. (Irresponsibles is the name for the nonfiction writers on Face News.)

After I left ABC23 I quickly decided to start experimenting with generating news on my own in an advanced mode that would surpass the blogging I once did. I tried a partnership with GateHouse Media. But they weren’t offering me anything I couldn’t do on my own. Their Web site was a Drupal template that readers weren’t enjoying. And neither was I. They also had a vastly different philosophy than myself. Once it came down to a contract I refused to sign. Face News was born out of a walk I took around the block where I live. I liked the concept.

When I started Face News, I almost instantly started generating income on the site and behind the scenes with people in the community who wanted to see it happen. That didn’t happen with the GateHouse Media site. They thought a site had to reach a certain population threshold in readers and users before ad revenue could be generated. That’s archaic thinking.

What did you do for ABC23 and how did the experience there help you with Face Bakersfield?

I was their website managing editor. I did the same thing I do now: post all the stories, edit, rewrite press releases, write original articles, promote, manage blogs, create videos, etc. I did a lot more there than I was supposed to, but then many topics would have been ignored if I hadn't. One time I voiced my opinion very strongly on a story the news director wasn't interested in. By the end of the night that story made The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. I also appeared on TV twice each day to talk about the Web. How could the experience not help me? There would be more of a learning curve if I never had that job.

What are all of your roles? How do you break up your day?

I appointed myself as managing editor because my duties are similar to those I had at KERO (ABC23). I manage the site’s content flow and write articles. I take photos and upload photo essays. I take some video, though not as much as when I was at ABC23. I manage other people’s projects within the site as well: nonfiction and advice mostly.

I also take part in any meetings with potential clients and sponsors.

Each day’s journey depends on content. What news does the day have to offer? Is there breaking news? Will I have an original story or just press releases to work with? Will I cover a sporting event? Do I have my own personal writing projects to attend to? I don’t always worry about news right away in the morning because the world just wants news. They’ll read it when its there.

I try to spend time on novels and on my Twitter novel, “Small Places,” each day. The Twitter novel is really important because it keeps generating a buzz on its own as the first original literary novel on Twitter. It’s been featured in the Christian Science Monitor, was the cover story for the North Bay Bohemian, has been mentioned on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” and recently had a great mention on Mashable.com. You can even find a link on Face News. Getting personal press is a great way to promote the site!

I look at my world, in which Face News is a part, as a flow of many writings, people, ideas, projects. It’s all part of this synthesis of writing I do.

What are your key content areas?

News and Sports are key. But the site would be nothing in my opinion without Nonfiction. That’s my favorite section! Still experimenting with the LA to Fresno section. I’m letting it stagnate a little as I decide what to try next. I’m always experimenting with different ideas. People like the Advice a lot too. It’s fun.

What percent of the content comes from you? What percent from the community? What do others contribute? How many contributors do you have?

I’m not going to worry about percentages. Most of the content comes from me. Most of the contributors write for the Nonfiction section. I also have an Advice columnist. Most contributors come and go except for my nonfiction team and advice. They’re loyal. I like that: people with a shared vision.

How do you describe your voice on the site?

Depends on what I’m writing. Some is straight up news. Some is conversational. Some is literary. Comments are in a different tone, too.

How do you decide what you'll cover yourself vs. use a press release for? How do you gauge public interest in a topic?

I like to cover sports myself when I can, and certain hard news stories. Just depends on how I feel information flow is on a topic and what kind of buzz I think a story might create. There's always public interest in every story, otherwise I wouldn't run a news site. Sometimes a story is important simply because it would serve the community to know. Sometimes I write stories that discuss what the other local media are saying. This helps provide the community with a wider perspective on a topic. Media frowns on that. But I don't care about media negativity. I care about readers. I've heard derogatory remarks from media, but so what? I've heard KTLA quote the LA Times lots of times. Nothing wrong with quoting the local media outlets. Nothing wrong with original news, and nothing wrong with press releases that are rewritten. It's all part of the content supply.

I'm surprised that your site covers sports when local media covers it so heavily. How does your site's coverage differ to fill an unmet need in the community? (Answer has been edited for length.)

I'm surprised that you're surprised. There's a huge void in Bakersfield in online and print sports coverage. Most sports stories are only put on the web by one company: Bakersfield.com. ABC23 stepped up their game but I was a big part of why they did it. I pushed for it. Who else puts pics on the Web of sports besides Bakersfield.com? Face News does. And per event, we add more photos than any other media outlet. Who else has a Flickr account? High quality photos too. Who else puts video clips of sports on YouTube? Maybe Bakersfield.com. But not the TV stations.

We're also the only local entity who Twitters from sporting events. The Jam, The Condors and now Blaze games have seen "Twitter Highlights of the Game" in sports articles. The Blaze, who are affiliated with the Texas Rangers, have no TV and no radio coverage this year. But I twitter real-time scores and commentary throughout the game. That's innovation right here in Bakersfield. Myself and Jesse Rivera (I have a different person assist on Twitter in each professional sports we cover) sent out Flickr pics, Twitpics and tweets all last Thursday night as the Blaze won their first home game of the season.

Sports has a void in Bakersfield and we're out to fill part of it any way we can. There's a lot of kinds of sports articles that are also waiting to be written. And if I had more time for video and better equipment, we would do more video.

How popular is your site? What are your page views? How many comments? (Answer has been edited for length.)

Face News hasn’t been around long enough to gauge popularity. My goal isn’t to win a popularity contest anyway. Lots of TV, newspaper and radio people read the site. People in Fresno read it, including folks in their media. Face News has been displayed on the home page of the Bakersfield Condors and the homepage of the entire NBA D league. We’ve been mentioned on two radio stations locally, in the Fresno Bee blogs, Bakersfield.com staff blogs, literary blogs and on television news. On Twitter, lots of folks have helped create a buzz from U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy to mommy bloggers like @bakomom. News is news. If it’s engaging, it gets around.

I’d say that’s pretty good as we don’t spend money on marketing and have yet to launch a grassroots campaign locally.

Page views? That’s archaic thinking. Who cares? I run a news site that caters to the community and builds relationships. I don’t ever worry about traffic, though I am aware traffic is down for now because we were down for a week and a half from a hacker attack.

Having worked at a TV station I saw how page views are puffed up for sales purposes. I could go on in great detail about how EVERY news site attempts to puff numbers. Look, though we took a hit recently, we were up to page two under the Google term, “Bakersfield News.” And we’ll get back there and maybe move higher. Sometimes our articles rank higher than local news sites. We compete just because there are few sites that write news content. We compete because we serve the community in a unique manner. I am confident the site is moving up in the world, otherwise so many people wouldn’t care about Face News.

How do you market your site?

Through online social networking tools, personal networking, business networking and partnerships, speaking engagements, and the uncanny ability to create a buzz.

What are your ad rates?

Interested parties can contact me if interested.

Who are your main advertisers?

One of the entities I can talk about is the Bakersfield Jam. Their organization is comprised of people who have a strong sense of community. Imagine if people stepped up who believed as much in baseball or football as the Jam’s investors do about their cause? We’re glad that we fit into their vision of community.

What was the source of your start-up funding?

Private. Yet what’s interesting to note is that as far as the technology goes, Face News was started for less than $100.

What do you see for the future of your site? What are your goals?

Our basic goals are simple: to grow and continue to serve the community. The future of our site depends on whether we and the community continue to share a vision. Will they continue to value Face News? Yesterday the CEO of the Bakersfield Californian left two comment on the site. That says something.

The future of Face News also depends on new partnerships in and outside of Bakersfield. And we’re working on that.

You mentioned a future goal is to become a nonprofit. Why do you want to be a nonprofit and why did you start out as a for-profit venture?

We were already set up as a for-profit company under the Noveltown umbrella. Non-profit has an upside in the area of funding that could possibly enrich the news we do. We're looking into it.

Why I still believe in citizen journalism

A week after I returned to work from maternity leave – and two weeks before I was laid off – I had lunch with Mary Lou Fulton, a vice president at The Bakersfield Californian, whose charge has been to grow audience through new products. She is a mentor and a role model for me, and I would love to do what she does: Start new products, teach others to make them successful, then move on to the next adventure. She is an idea machine. She also has a smooth way of talking that makes me a believer in anything she's pitching.

I needed to have lunch with her because she invigorates me, and I was sorely in need of some inspiration to return to my job as Contributions Editor. While I was on maternity leave, the newspaper had a round of layoffs. I was a pseudo-survivor. While my management-level position was eliminated and my three team members were farmed out to other departments, I was offered to return to a demoted position – still called Contributions Editor – for less pay. I tearfully accepted the position. (I blame post-partum hormones for the tears.) Then I vowed to find another job before my maternity leave was up. Well, job searching while caring for a newborn as a first-time mother is exhausting and frustrating. After many more tears, I gave up and decided to go back to work at The Californian until they escorted me out of the door. As fate would have it, the escort service arrived just three weeks later.

But back to that lunch with Mary Lou. I had been given an assignment which brought back my original fears about citizen journalism – that it was a plot to replace skilled journalists with free labor and lower quality content. My task was to create a long list of people who are connected in the community and ask them to contribute nuggets of news for us to print. With another round of layoffs imminent, was I gathering scabs? No, Mary Lou and I agreed. I was just being proactive about getting news tips, and these tips would be vetted by editors before running in the paper.

The bigger question, Mary Lou asked me, is how can I reach out to undercovered communities so they can have voices on Bakersfield.com and in The Bakersfield Californian. Yes! This is why I loved being the Contributions Editor. With our reporting staff continually shrinking, citizen journalism enabled us to get stories into our products that otherwise wouldn't – couldn't – be told. Mary Lou and I brainstormed ideas for groups to reach out to: nonprofits, churches, schools. Within each group would be a diverse cross-section of our community.

I reminded myself of the reasons I believe in citizen journalism: (And this is straight out of the PowerPoint I've given to fellow journalists)
-- It creates a two-way conversation with your audience.
-- The audience participates in the media, not just consumes it.
-- It eliminates news professionals as gatekeepers of information.
-- It gives your media organization a competitive advantage.

But even more than that, sometimes citizen journalists have great stories to tell. And with a little help from a professional editor, the rocks can be tumbled and shined into gleaming gems. In my two years as Contributions Editor at The Californian, I have laughed, I have cried, I have jumped up from my desk and shared what I just read with a neighboring editor. I've also winced, groaned and rolled my eyes at some really bad writing (especially poetry). But sometimes people would submit the most beautiful photos and the most heartfelt tales.

There was the mother whose son died from an accidental gunshot who wrote about bringing herself to unpack his books to share his love of reading with her stepchildren. There was the military wife who wrote about her excitement for her husband to come home from Iraq for two weeks and celebrate their daughter's second birthday together. And the mother who wrote about what it's like to know her daughter's killer is still on the loose and the case has gone cold. (Stories by mothers are the most powerful to me.)

A common theme among many of the citizen journalism pieces submitted under my watch was that they were deeply personal. Sure, there were press releases by public relations professionals and organizations getting the word out about their events. But most of the stories were about family, friendship, personal achievement, obstacles overcome, and special memories. These are the stories important to our readers and I felt very fortunate as an editor to help them shape and share their stories.

Every contributed article I pitched for print was edited and fact-checked by me. Before I sent the story to the copy desk, I e-mailed it back to the author to make sure I didn't introduce any errors in the editing process and so he or she wouldn't be surprised to see the edits in print. I treated every citizen journalist as if he or she was a staff writer and asked the contributor to fill holes or answer key questions. The editing process on amateur pieces is time consuming but well worth it. Writers often thanked me for making their stories better and our readers got a better product because of it.

Reporters and editors at The Californian also thanked me regularly for taking stories off their hands and working directly with the public. It freed them to do more skilled, investigative work while community members submitted their own hometown news stories. This approach to “hyper-local news” satisfied our readers' needs to see good news in the paper and our staff's needs to focus their time on more in-depth, watchdog reporting.

This is why I still believe in citizen journalism. It gives a voice to the community that the newspaper just can't afford to do themselves. However, the newspaper won't be the venue for this content much longer. As newspapers stop trying to be all things to all people, niche Web sites and publications will fill in the gaps of hyper-local information sharing. All over the country, one-man bands are launching community Web sites to serve their local niche markets. Many use bloggers, freelancers and concerned citizens to write much of the content for these sites.

The Bakersfield Californian, with Mary Lou Fulton's lead, had incredible insight into this future of journalism when it launched Mercado Nuevo. The subsidiary company manages three niche sites with accompanying print products – with nearly all of the content produces by citizen journalists and bloggers. These are The Bakersfield Voice (serving west Bakersfield), Mas Magazine (serving the Latino community), and Bakotopia (serving the youth and music scene). But even these products are being scaled back as the company tightens its belt further and further. Once a bustling company all of its own, Mercado Nuevo's operations are slowly being moved into The Californian's building, with the newsroom now copy editing and designing the print products. After the March layoff, the newsroom has 26 percent fewer staff members doing far more work. And it's going to get worse.

(By the way, why did it make sense for The Bakersfield Californian to eliminate the Contributions Editor position in the last round of layoffs when they seem to need it more than ever? For the same reason they eliminated the Web Editor position when they went Web-first: To charge all newsroom leaders to be contributions editors, just like they made all editors into Web editors. The newspaper is filled with more community content than ever before and they didn't need me alone to do the dirty work.)

The market is wide open in Bakersfield for community members to launch their own Web sites to better serve the local audience. And one man is trying to do just that. Nick Belardes, a local author, has recently created FaceBakersfield.com, a site about local news, sports, pop culture and fiction. I'll be visiting with him soon to learn more about his site and I'll share my insights on this blog.