Northwest Voice: Behind the scenes
The Northwest Voice is a new community print and Web publication in Bakersfield, Calif., in which nearly all the content is contributed by people in the community — one of the most ambitious participatory journalism efforts in the United States to date.
In an interview with CyberJournalist.net publisher Jonathan Dube, Mary Lou Fulton, the publisher of The Northwest Voice and the New Product Development Manager for The Bakersfield Californian, says this "open source" model is a great way to "address the growing alienation between readers and the media."
"News coverage has become dominated by bad news and event-driven news," says Fulton, who has worked for both traditional media (AP, Los Angeles Times) and online media (AOL, washingtonpost.com). "When readers try to tell journalists about things that dont fit the formula, they hear lots of rules explaining why whats important to them is unworthy of attention... We need to find more ways to bring the accomplishments and concerns of ordinary people into the spotlight."
Here is the full interview with Fulton:
The Northwest Voice is a fascinating project. How is it going so far? What has the reaction been in the community?
We launched in May and were very pleased with the early response. In eight weeks, more than 200 individuals have contributed articles, pictures, events, church news, recipes and more. Weve also been warmly received by readers, who tell us they really like seeing familiar faces and places in The Voice, and also appreciate our emphasis on community accomplishments. Advertising has been going quite well, too. Although its early, we feel The Voice has the makings of a successful model.
How hard/easy was it to recruit contributors?
We spent a lot of time on community outreach before the launch. We identified people we thought could be regular contributors and met personally with as many of them as possible to explain the idea and invite them to participate. This core group included our school superintendents and principals, leaders of parent-teacher organizations, pastors, the people who run youth sports leagues such as AYSO and our local baseball leagues, our local parks and recreation district and others.
We also recruited columnists to write about topics of community interest, including horses, off-roading, pets, education and cars. The columnists provide predictable content that we can count on consistently so that we arent entirely dependent on what comes in over the transom.
In our community, people immediately liked the idea of a neighborhood publication, but they didnt get the content model at first. Wed explain about how we wanted people in the community to write all the articles, and inevitably wed hear, OK, but can you come out to cover my event? And wed politely say, No, but if youd like to write something up, wed be glad to publish it. I think it simply had never occurred to many people that such participation was possible. Its interesting and exciting to see passive consumers turn into active participants, which is exactly what we want.
Its especially thrilling is to see content come in from contributors we didnt recruit. Theyre the people who are reading the print edition or surfing the Web site and feel empowered to send us their pictures, recipes, events, pets for adoption, whatever they want to share. I just love looking at our Web queue and seeing pictures like this. Its a vote of confidence from the community and Im so grateful for it.
Your site says that as of June 16, more than 140 individuals have contributed articles, pictures and events, and revenue is up 31%. Do you have more current figures?
As of July 6, we are now up to more than 200 individual content contributors. Pictures have been the most popular type of content, followed by school news and calendar events. We continually run photo contests to give readers a reason to send us pictures and they have responded very positively to that.
And what exactly does the revenue growth number mean (considering the publication just launched)?
As a start-up business, we began with zero revenue. We had 42 advertisers in the first print edition and we are up to 57 in the latest print edition, a 35% increase. Revenue also has grown by about the same percentage, meaning that in the latest print edition we are bringing in 33% more revenue than we did in the first print edition. The Voice is not profitable yet, but all the numbers are trending in the right direction and we expect to reach operational breakeven within a few months.
For us, its not just about how much money were making, but how were making the money. An important part of our mission is to grow our companys market share among advertisers, particularly small businesses who cant afford the daily Bakersfield Californian or prefer a more targeted product. More than half of our advertisers are new to our company and were very pleased about that. Also, 76% of our advertising is in smaller, more inexpensive sizes 1/8 page ads, coupons and directory listings so we feel were hitting that sweet spot with smaller businesses.
Why does the revenue model rely primarily on advertising in the print publication?
The print publication has a lot greater reach than the Web site right now, given that the paper is delivered to every home in Northwest Bakersfield, and thus print is more effective for advertisers. Our Web audience is growing at a steady pace and I expect the Web to contribute significant revenue as the product matures.
I noticed that the articles include the disclaimer, "The opinions and accuracy of information in this article are the responsibility of the contributor." Does the staff make any attempt at verifying information in contributions, and if so, to what extent?
We included that disclaimer to establish accountability between the contributor and the reader. Most of our community contributions come from trusted individuals like school teachers, youth sports coaches and ministers, so we dont feel the need to double-check on everything they write. If we receive contributions regarding a public controversy, we do make sure the facts are correct but the presentation of the information is entirely up to the individual.
Many traditional media organizations may bristle at the idea of publishing content whose accuracy they cannot verify. What would you say to them?
There are many corrections published every day, so I wouldnt say that traditional media organizations have exactly cornered the market on accuracy. But I think the larger issue is really about how we address the growing alienation between readers and the media. News coverage has become dominated by bad news and event-driven news. When readers try to tell journalists about things that dont fit the formula, they hear lots of rules explaining why whats important to them is unworthy of attention, like, Oh, we dont cover school plays, or Sorry, we dont run pictures of groundbreakings. Life consists of a lot more than news hooks, and we need to find more ways to bring the accomplishments and concerns of ordinary people into the spotlight. We need to spend more time finding ways to say yes to readers.
What role do you see participatory journalism or, as you call it, "open source journalism," playing in the media in the future?
A recent Pew Internet and American Life Project study found that 44% of Internet users had created some type of online content, and theyre doing so largely independent of traditional media organizations.
(Related: CyberJournalist.net's full report on the Pew study)
Open source journalism is all about tapping into this wellspring of content, more and more of which is being created every day. In a world in which a growing number of readers are becoming publishers, we ignore this trend at our own peril. The open source model offers us a new way to connect with readers, to better understand their worries and joys, and to enable them to share some of themselves with the world. It gives readers a personal and emotional stake in our products, and I believe that is critical to the future of our industry.
Since starting this project, what has surprised you the most? And what have you learned?
I have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the writing from our community contributors. I expected wed have to do a lot more rewriting. Im also surprised that we havent received more content that is inappropriate or off-topic since we offer to publish everything, but we have received only a few contributions that we had to politely decline.
I have learned a lot about being flexible and optimistic in working with volunteers, since all of our contributors are unpaid and writing for The Voice isnt always their top priority. One of our columnists unexpectedly informed me that hed be on vacation for the next few weeks and would let me know when he could write again. But that same week, another reader volunteered to be a columnist on a different topic, so everything ended up working out just fine.
What advice would you give to other news organizations who would like to try something similar?
Choose an area where there is a strong or emerging sense of community identity. Do some serious business planning to identify a target audience, your core of content contributors that will connect with that audience, and the appeal for advertisers. Invest time in product design, both print and online. And dont listen to the people who tell you it will never work.
Jul 16, 2004 | E-MAIL | SAVE | PRINT | PERMALINK | DISCUSS(1)
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1 comments about 'Northwest Voice: Behind the scenes'There is a similar online newspaper- www.out2.com- that encourages and relies on community participation. It has a site for just about every community in every state.
Posted by me at July 22, 2004 7:44 PM
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1 Weblogs reference 'Northwest Voice: Behind the scenes' Citizen journalismTrackback excerpt: The Bakersfield Californian has launched The Northwest Voice, an every-other-week community paper where 90 percent of the content is provided by people in the community. Says Publisher Mary Lou Fulton: "It’s interesting and exciting to see passive co... [Read More]
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