Exploring the ecosystem of local independent media

Excellent post by Jeff Jarvis coming out of a roundtable that was held recently at CUNY with local ad sales people,  to gather insight on what local merchants need from local media. It’s called “What ad sales people hear.”

A few takeaways that resonated with me:

• Selling a service, not just a product
• Keeping costs low
• The advertiser needs to see the ad in action– it’s not just data
• Self-service doesn’t work for most local merchants. They expect service.

The whole “New Business Models for News” program, which Jarvis is heading,  seems like a great resource to keep an eye on.

SustainableNews.Biz is about  creating a sustainable enterprise around local news startups.  This blog is for journalists and others starting local news sites, and hopefully will offer some insight into the interplay of local audiences, advertising, news  and community.

My particular interest here is the solo journalist starting a local news site. With tens of thousands of layoffs in traditional media in 2008-09, many journalists have used their new freedom to launch their own local news sites. Unfortunately, there was no class in J-school for how to make a local site sustainable. In fact, in J-school we were taught to stay away from the business side, weren’t we?

This is a whole new world, where the solo journalist needs to learn how to be a publisher – fast. She/he has only about a year of severance pay to figure it out.

The good news is we’ve been here before: Pioneer publishers dragged a press across the plains, set it up, wrote the news, sold the ads, ran the press,  delivered the papers, and probably dodged some bullets from angry readers and advertisers.

You can do it too. And you have it easier! No press to run, no actual bullets to dodge (hopefully).

Feel free to use this blog as a forum for connecting with other journalist/entrepreneurs, to share your successes and learnings,  to pass along items of interest. Send items my way, to joe at joemichaud dot com, or post them as comments.

For now, SustainableNews.Biz is just this blog, but in coming months the blog will connect to a larger initiative. More to come on that, but rest assured the purpose and mission of this blog won’t change.

PS:  Yes, I already have a blog at www.joemichaud.com (which currently is the same site as www.localinteractivestrategies.com). That blog is a general look at the local news business, including traditional media. SustainableNews.Biz is a much more focused look at local startups.