Rust Belt Newspaper

[Jim Russell]

Another good idea from Richard Longworth:

Here’s a potentially money-making idea. The Tribune could launch a Midwestern newspaper, a sort of regional [Financial Times] that covers both the Midwest and the globe with true quality journalism, and would work hard to link the Midwest to the globe. It would be smaller in size, with considerably higher newsstand and subscription prices, less reliant on advertising, devoid of the kind of Dear Abby features that bring in readers now. . . . This would be an elite paper, sure. But it would inject global knowledge into a region that desperately needs it. And who knows, it might be read by local editors and reporters who could be inspired to do some of the same sort of reporting on their own back yards.

[Dick Longworth]

Dan Knauss writes: "This is a great goal but Longworth is not the guy to engineer the practical means of achieving it." Dan, you've got that right! My original idea (which first appeared in the Chicago Reader) stressed the need for this publication and suggested one way of doing it. Dan contributed to this on March 26 when he spelled out the "goal:" "create an sustain an influential Midwestern/Great Lakes regional publication with first-class journalism that contextualizes and 'does the news' in a way that integrally connects new habits of thought..........." Much of the other replies so far have suggested ways of achieving this. Naturally, I'm delighted that so many people are taking this seriously and want to make it happen.

My original idea called for a Financial Times-type newspaper. I'm an old newspaper guy and this is the way I think. But this is 20th-century thinking, and we're talking about a publication to meet a 21st-century need. The consensus seems to be that a print newspaper wouldn't work, and some online or web publication is the way to go. This is probably right. But this begs the question:

What's the content and how can this be put together? The medium is not the message. The message is the message. We're talking about a Midwestern regional news source that delivers quality journalism, both from this region and from the rest of the world as it relates to this region. How do you do this?

First, with all respect to bloggers, blog are not the answer. Gathering and delivering quality news is hard work, and it's expensive. Bloggers can make valuable contributions -- in spotting stories, in giving local background, in correcting errors, in suggesting sources, frequently in contributing local stories. But good journalism isn't something that's done in one's spare time. It's full-time work, by professionals. In this case, it requires linking the global to the local, which means global journalism done by reporters who both understand the world and understand the local audience for which they're writing. Often, this sort of glocal connecting can only be done by professional editors who know both the global and the local.

In other words, we're talking real expenses. At some point, on-line publications are going to figure out how to make money from the web, to pay for their coverage. In the meantime, foundation grants or other funding may be the way to go. Again, Dan gets at this when he suggests "enough startup capital to fund a small staff capable of elite, groundbreaking journalism..........:"

Kenneth Thompson alludes to this when he asks if "anyone from Chicago has gone to Mexico to write about the places people are leaving behind, for a Chicago audience?" Actually, yes -- the Trib has sent people from Chicago, and from its Los Angeles bureau and, mostly, from its Mexico City bureau, which pretty much does this story full time. All this coverage costs money -- several hundred thousand dollars a year, when you figure in the cost of having a fulltime bureau in Mexico City. As you've read, the Trib is under terrific financial pressures right now. Everyone here prays that its foreign service will survive. But if it doesn't, what news fills the gap -- and how do you pay for it?

Another thought -- the news business, as now practiced by newspapers, is the last national industry. Everybody else has gone global -- with operations, markets, leaders, executives, etc. -- from many countries. Only newspapers remain resolutely American, with an American audience, American reporters (even overseas), American angles, American editors, etc. Well, there is a vast corps of fine journalists around the world, many of them writing good English, who could contribute to the global web we have in mind. You don't need a fulltime (and expensive) bureau in Stockholm or Barcelona or Cairo or Tokyo or Mexico City, so long as there are excellent journalists (probably working for Svenska Dagbladet or La Vanguardia or Al-Ahram or Nikkei or Reforma) who can contribute articles on what's going on in their territories, with guidance from our site's editors and possibly collaborating with our reporters in, say, Detroit or Pittsburgh. All these papers have their own websites, some of them excellent, to which we would link.

Like my original thoughts in the Reader, all this is thrown out for discussion, to be saluted or savaged. Fire away.............

[john morris]

Great discussion, I still need to follow all the links provided. Honestly Dick, I don't think anyone here is disputing the kind of costs involved in forming a traditional press infrastructure. I think what we are saying is that when you look at much of the rust belt as it now is , it's just pretty clear that the cash and potential market just isn't there. So that leaves us with the reality of a lot of smart people and existing knowledge that could be put to work now in non traditional ways.

Like it or not, non linear- market based formats like the wikipedia are very practical and often produce a sum product better than union writers and editors. It's also been well stated that the line between "blogs", online magazines and traditional media is very thin and there seem to already be people making small amounts of money sustaining projects like this. Pittsburgh's POP City & Detroit's Model D come to mind as well as Detroit Yes and Buffalo Rising. In other cities there are the Metroblog networks. Art Cal, Art Blogging LA and Art Blog in Philly show that this trend is very far along in the art world.

[Dan Knauss]

I think you could conscript the better regional bloggers (who often have a journalism, public policy, and/or government background) into writing and editing for a regional online news publication, but this would require financing for technical staff and remuneration for writing and editing staff. It would be a really long shot to try to create and sustain this with 100% volunteers.

The startup funding is out there. Aside from the private sector, there are a number of key media/journalism foundations backing and cultivating hyperlocal and citizen journalist projects. Maybe they could be sold on a mixture of those approaches with traditional journalism and open source journalism hybrid. It seems to me that the hyperlocal interest isn't really looking at ways to direct that kind of content toward less parochial concerns. I think it is a natural link. An intensely local interest in, say, Milwaukee transit issues is a natural tie-in to looking at other cities and relevant contexts. You just need the publisher/editorial direction to turn it that way.

[john morris]

I have to admit to just not being knowledgable about everything already out there, mostly because I'm not a techy at all and because very little seems to link regionally.

For what it's worth I am throwing on these links to some stuff I know in the art world. Art Cal and Culture pundits are at least the partial creations of Barry Hoggard/ AKA Bloggy who is technically a member here. Art Cal, is part guide, part zine, part online newsletter. Culture Pundits is a new network of culture bloggers.

http://www.artcal.net/
http://www.culturepundits.com/thenetwork

Perhaps Barry has a tip or two? As far as I know he has no direct connection to the midwest but he has always been generous and helpful.

[Jim Russell]

I'm with Dan concerning the less traditional approach to covering globalization, but the point about the need for funding is well-taken. I wouldn't be adverse to a mega-regional Financial Times, but I know from experience that there are enough professional stories out there on a daily basis to drive a blogging enterprise about Rust Belt globalization. I also appreciate the ability of some bloggers to analyze academic research, something that seems to elude most professional journalists.

And with all due respect to Dick, one doesn't need to be a professional editor to make glocal connections. I'm a trained geographer who teaches geography at a local community college. My students can make the necessary glocal connections. That said, there is a great need for the perspective of professional journalists in whatever enterprise might best serve the mega-regional readership.

[Jim Russell]

We could put together a proposal for the Knight News Challenge. I think the editor of the online publication should be a professional journalist.

Dick, you interested?

[Peter Panepento]

I think this idea has a lot of potential. I've spoken with business people in Erie in the past about how that community would embrace a local business newspaper. But I think there is much greater potential in generating something more regional in its aim. The economics would definitely be better -- and it would fill a sweet spot in the market.

I've asked my readers on GlobalErie if they would be willing to support such an effort.

I believe it HAS to be online -- and the revenue model would probably have to include a mix of subscription and advertising.

I've done a lot of work with startup media projects in the past and I am a business journalist. So I'd be happy to take part in some way if this idea starts to take hold.

[Jim Russell]

Peter,

Thank you for voicing your support of the idea. I haven't heard anything more from Dick on the subject, but I'd like to move forward just the same. The Knight News Challenge (linked above) is one prospect for funding, but widening the scope of the project might open some other doors.

What I have in mind is an online publication that helps to cultivate an economic mega-regional identity. If we think big enough, we can tap into the Great Lakes Economic Initiative and the GLUE project. I prefer something a bit smaller and more manageable:

Greater Lake Erie Economic Corridors

This is bigger than the Cleveburgh Corridor I've been promoting, but I think it is quite functional and historically coherent. But that might be my Erie world view doing the talking. Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Buffalo were a big part of my childhood sense of place. Ontario is also part of that mental map and I'm encouraged by the emerging linkages between Detroit and my own Postindustrial Heartland landscape.

In his book, Dick talks about a social and economic watershed that exists in Michigan. The western part of the state feels Chicago's gravity. The eastern part of the state still revolves around Detroit. I think this observation can help us outline a functional geography for the publication. The economic corridors that surround and radiate outward from Lake Erie make sense to me.

[john morris]

I have to admit to being wanting more of an organic "just do it aproach" that just allows the market to define itself over time. Some type of project that links and uses some existing content with a large dose area for forums and discusion.

Personally, I think in the long term, the project needs to be linked somewhat to a large market like Chicago. The Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Erie, Bufalo mix links a number of weak markets together. Moreover, it links weak markets with little history of working together or interacting much.

The one thing, I am pretty sure of is that it should be centered in the "midwest". The East coast, in spite of being close to the region by distance is just to far away culturally. We just don't interest the east coast.

[Jim Russell]

To great extent, all of us are fine examples of the "just do it approach." A formal start-up is the way to go. As you noted at Global Erie, the current collaborative contributions are sporadic at best.

Linking smaller markets together would seem to me to be a great idea. Besides, I don't get the impression that Chicago is leaping at Dick's proposal. I look at places like Erie and Youngstown and see great opportunity of the kind that won't interest the large markets.

I'm an Erie native enjoying surprising success working together with community activists in Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Buffalo. All this from the remote location of Colorado. And all I did is start blogging. I don't think I need an MBA to understand the opportunity before us.

[john morris]

Perhaps one way to start would be to see if some of the existing blogs would be willing to cross post content, aggregate content. or contribute guest posts.

I also think the comment forum will be a big driver for readers.I love Detroit Yes, which is basically just a forum.

It's a very different field but a large number of arts websites, sadly seem to get by on unpaid content. I don't think Art Cal has been able to pay the contributors to it's zine yet. Art Blog in Philly covers the technical costs with ads but not much else. A great paper like the Brooklyn Rail also operates by paying writers something like $50 a story. ( they are a bit weird in that they could almost surely have more ads but are run more as a non profit.) The entire Metroblog network runs with unpaid writers.

The main reason for involving a major market over time is that it would might build a much larger base of readers and contributors(and potential advertisers). Linking four or five cities that have already lagged at globaliztion will produce meager progress. Personally. I would be very interested in a better site with with only 5-10% Pittsburgh regional stories.

The nice thing about starting the project online is that it might make narrowly defining the market less important and allow for flexibility.

[Dan Knauss]

Perhaps one way to start would be to see if some of the existing blogs would be willing to cross post content, aggregate content. or contribute guest posts.

I'd do that.