New Media Trend: Laid-off Reporters Start Free Online News Site

It's tough out there for reporters. Especially reporters who worked at large local papers that have downsized dramatically. If you like the city -- Denver, Seattle, Newark (yes, Newark) -- you don't have much in the way of options for finding another local paper to work on. (Sure, there's the Denver Post, the Seattle Times, but Newark?)

There's a growing trend of former employees of defunct or downsized papers who gather together and start publishing their own free newspapers online. For example, former Rocky Mountain News reporters have established their own site. A friend in Hyde Park, NY, started a new online site after the paper for which he wrote a regular column ceased publication.

The latest example, courtesy of the New York Times: "Cast Out, but Still Reporting" about former Newark Star-Ledger reporters.

There are a couple of interesting elements about this trend:

• These are established, experienced reporters -- and they are working for free.
• They realize that the interest in local news did not go away -- even as business problems plagued their newspapers. In other words, there are structural problems with the old model -- perhaps too much debt taken on, as with the Tribune Co. or GateHouse Media.
• That said, there are structural problems with these new online sites. Namely no advertising revenue (yet), no subscription fees, and no payroll. Hardly sustainable.
• These new sites will put pressure on other papers in their markets (Denver Post, Seattle Times), making it less likely those newly single-paper markets will flourish as much as their publishers proclaimed.

The question is: how long can these new efforts last when no one's getting paid.

Meanwhile, as for PR functions, it it important to consider these new outlets, though I don't know how many are offering up business sections vs. local municipal news.

The future of newspapers' business sections in the Internet age

The tightening ad market is claiming more victims. The latest: "The Denver Post—which folded its business section into other sections on every day but Sunday—last month became at least the eighth daily since early 2007 to cut its stand-alone daily business section," according to BtoBOnline.

As it is, many newspapers have been pushing their readers to their websites to check out the stock pages, in part as a cost-savings initiative because the cost of newsprint continues to rise (if only I could invest in the futures market for newsprint). And in part because most active traders, these newspapers feel, already check their stocks online.

But getting rid of standalone business sections means:

• Business news becomes a less important section within the newspaper hierarchy.
• Business sections will get fewer resources and reporters. The level of business coverage will decrease because staffs won't have enough time to cover news they would like to.
  
• Business sections will be smaller sections and more difficult to find.
• There will be less room for local coverage.
  

All this will lead to a more challenging ad environment, and a downward cycle.

This is good news for local business weeklies...which should be able to beef up their pages with content and ads.

Meanwhile, the BtoBOnline article cited "a study by Arizona State University's National Center for Business Journalism found that about 75% of daily newspapers today run, on average, one page or less of business news a day, and only one in eight daily papers runs a stand-alone section."

The implications for B2B PR programs is that we need to shift our focus to the business weeklies and AP, Bloomberg and Reuters, and away from local market daily business sections.