Hyperlocal News Was Supposed to Thrive -- But Now It's Not. So What Happened?

Several years ago, as regional newspapers began shutting down in droves, the smart money was that hyperlocal media would not survive, it would thrive. As we wrote in  "The Prospect for Hyperlocal Continues to Look Good -- But Can It Capture the Ad Market?" back in 2009!, the reason was "because while there will always be sources for national news, people still want local news."

Many top national media wrote about the gleaming prospects for hyperlocal media. For example, Fast Company wondered: "Can Anyone Tap the $100 Billion Potential of Hyperlocal News? Community-driven news services have been the next big thing online for years. Can The New York Times or AOL find the $100 billion local-advertising pot of gold?"

So we weren't alone in thinking that hyperlocal would survive a meltdown among local media. After all, there are many competing sources for local and regional news but generally only one voice for hyperlocal media.

(By the way, it's worth pointing out that the subhead in the Fast Company article references AOL -- as an example of how much may have changed since 2009.)

We have a nonprofit client for whom hyperlocal is critically important to their work so we've been paying close attention. Over the past year, there's been a lot of cutbacks in hyperlocal media. The problem isn't interest in or support of hyperlocal media from readers. In many cases, the subscribers still want hyperlocal news but the economics outside the community remain terrible.

That's in part because newspaper chains like Gannett borrowed billions to acquire hyperlocal media to generate growth only to find out they had taken on too much debt and needed to make cutbacks.

Lots of cutbacks. According to a Boston Business Journal article, "Northeastern professor Dan Kennedy... referred to the latest round of layoffs as a ‘bloodbath.’ The company has closed at least 19 Greater Boston weeklies this year and has replaced much of the local coverage with regional stories."

The BBJ further noted "80 terminations across more than 50 newsrooms — but the full picture of what local readers across the country lost has yet to emerge."

19 community weeklies closed = news deserts?

That doesn't include layoffs at other hyperlocal papers, which has led to fewer reporters having to cover larger territories. That has led to fewer hyperlocal news and feature articles, which have been replaced by regional trend articles. A recent example: a look at the wobbly post-COVID locally owned restaurant market (as opposed to fast food chains) actually didn't quote any hometown restaurateur; instead, the article provided quotes from owners from several different communities -- some of them that may be an hour away. While the article was still interesting, it was not hyperlocal. The benefit for the editors is that that single regional article was published in different hyperlocal papers. That's how understaffed newsrooms can continue to publish news. It's just not hyperlocal news.

And that means that communities are not getting the kind of hyperlocal information they want or expect.

They've been what's been called "news deserts," defined by the UNC School of Media and Journalism's Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media, as "a community, either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level." News deserts are a problem because it means communities aren’t getting critical information related to civic life, government services, etc.

Once limited to rural communities, news deserts now include suburban communities and even larger cities where alternate weeklies have closed, affecting large parts of those communities.

The reason this is significant is that hyperlocal newspapers support their communities, the businesses and the nonprofits, the students and the seniors -- it helps bind communities. 

Here's an example of how this plays out using Marblehead, the North Shore community in which we've maintained our global world headquarters because we've experienced some of the problem of a news desert.

We've been served by the Marblehead Reporter, a print weekly that has become thinner, with less hyperlocal coverage. Please keep in mind: we're not blaming editors or reporters; they're working under difficult conditions; but we do blame Gannett and hedge funds like the Alden Group that purchase newspapers and extract value while decimating the newsroom and the quality of the product.

We're also served by the Marblehead Patch, which seems to produce one actual news story about the community per day but does a better job of sending alerts than the Marblehead Reporter. The the email newsletter from the Patch makes it seem like there's a lot of new content but most of the newsletter features regional coverage. The Patch is good about fires, school closings, etc. -- which is useful information but we don't recall seeing a lot of articles that requires in-depth reporting about issues affecting the town. That would be information residents can't get elsewhere. (We can get school closing information from Boston TV stations, which post that information on their websites.)

With fewer hyperlocal news articles, residents tend to feel less connected. It also means that the paper is less important because some readers figure they don't need to read it closely because there's less info about the town -- replaced by more content about other communities (that they don't have time to visit). 

As a result, Marblehead has three new initiatives to build hyperlocal media outlets. We hope they take hold but there are issues with all three.

• Marblehead Weekly News, which is published by Essex Media Group, which publishes the Daily Item of Lynn, Lynnfield Weekly News, Peabody Weekly News, and other local media. It is staffed by reporters who also work on other Essex Media properties. We've seen one print edition, mostly focused on the upcoming primary so it's too early to judge. One problem is that there's not a website yet for the publication, just a weekly print edition. So there's currently nothing available at MarbleheadWeeklyNews.com. There's also not even a listing for the Marblehead Weekly News on the Essex website's listing of its various properties. We're sure that will happen. The weekly also includes some sports and features on the "Historic Building of the Week"; in a town with a starling number of pre-Revolutionary homes, the first choice was a local movie theater. On the other hand, the Marblehead Weekly News has brought out the Police Blotter, something the Marblehead Reporter used to publish and seemed to be quite popular (because the items reported included a report of spilled Cheerios in front of the Post Office). But, so far, and it's early yet -- no real news coverage.
• Meanwhile Marblehead News has an actual website. But it may not have a name because it posted an item in June 20, 2022 that it's crowdsourcing for a permanent name. Which is a good thing. We found it only because we were searching for Marblehead Weekly News and found them instead. Most of the news currently available on the site is campaign statements. Plus one article about the local movie theater -- we don't know who's handling its PR, but kudos! One thing that makes Marblehead News interesting is that two of the founding staff formerly worked for the Marblehead Reporter so we think that's a good sign because they know the town and they know journalism. But it's also a nonprofit that will try supporting itself by raising donations. Also, it seems like a part-time gig for them, and we don't blame them because they're taking on a risk  by working on this at all.  
• The third new outlet is called the Marblehead Beacon, which also launched in June 2022, and is run as a "citizen-based news site." As of press time (this article was written a couple of weeks before the updated blog and website were finalized), because the Massachusetts primary are a week away, the Beacon has a lot of content about local candidates. While we're hopeful about the Beacon, it is run by two businesswomen with limited journalism experience and other business interests along with a high school student who is handling technology (as one might expect). 

When we started thinking about this blog, we did not realize there were three news startups trying to provide a variety of print and online news for a community of some 20,000 residents. That's kind of a problem since we're media junkies who live in the community -- so we know they're not having significant impact yet. But we hope that will change.

Right now, political candidates are getting the most attention but it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Will the Marblehead Reporter respond, and if so, how? (We assume the Patch won't be able to.) And we don't know how closely part-time journalists will be able to cover the community news and issues beyond fires, roadwork/construction issues, etc.   

We're using Marblehead as an example but there may be similar efforts in other local communities. And we're not necessarily endorsing one of these outlets over another but we want them all to succeed in finding an audience and delivering news. Our point here is to continue a discussion about hyperlocal news sites and news deserts.

Let us know what you think about news deserts and news startups in your communities. 

Fortune & Other Media Are Shrinking...Their Offices & Number of Issues They Publish + Why it Matters

We've seen a possible new media trend that involves downsizing — but not necessarily the downsizing you first think of.

Some media are downsizing their office space. As recently noted in the Boston Globe by Jon Chesto (@jonchesto), two local papers, the Salem News and the Herald News as well as publishers from Los Angeles to Miami are moving into smaller offices because they can no longer justify their older, larger offices in part because the papers have laid off staff members. This follows similar moves by the Boston Globe and Boston Herald. According to Chesto, "Many of their buldings are local icons, fuxtres in their respective cities' downtowns. But they were built for a different time in the media business." 

That's a trend that, unfortunately, is likely continue, creating a potential downward spiral. According to Chesto, "The downside: Newspaper companies are left with fewer hard assets, as operating performance declines. That can make them less attractive to potential buyers and lenders," which may make it more challenging to attract digitally-focused enterprises.

The other part of the trend is that Fortune magazine is downsizing its publishing schedule. Not that long ago, Fortune published twice a month or 24 issues. Currently, "Fortune is published monthly with two double issues (June and December), for a total of 14 issues," according to the publishing statement inside the print edition available in the Jan. 2020 issue.

But Fortune just  announced that it is downsizing its publishing schedule as of Feb. 2020 to 10 times a year. The magazine says this will allow for bigger issues and investment in digital content, including a paywall. The magazine will offer three tiers of subscriptions: digital-only ($49), digital plus print ($99) and Premium ($199) which offers videos from Fortune conferences and other exlusive content.

The downshift in the number of publications will make competition to get content into the magazine harder. That said, there may be more digital content, behind the paywall, but that still may limit the influence of a Fortune article.

We do expect other publications to shrink their publishing schedule. Forbes, which used publish twice monthly, now publishes nine times a year "except for four issues combined periodically into two and occasional extra, expanded, or premium issues. Combined, expanded, and premium issues count as two subscription issues." Is that clear? Fast Company and Wired both publish 10 issues a year, down from 12. So "monthly" doesn't mean what it used to.

Forbes has made an effort to push more digital content but has done so by tapping a community of vetted contributors (who, it is important to note, are not reporters).

Ultimately, our point, is that smaller staffs and fewer issues could lead to a few things:

1. Less opportunity for marketers due to reduced frequency of issues and the possibility of smaller print issues.
2. The need for reporters and editors decreases if you're publishing nine issues instead of 24 per year.
3. People will become less reliant on a magazine if they're not seeing it as frequently. One of our colleagues thought that his subscription for Forbes and Fortune had expired because he thought he had stopped receiving them, only to find out the number of issues had decreased. "With more time between issues, I find I don't think about what Forbes or Fortune is doing," he said. "It's out of sight, out of mind, and yet they're still publishing and still interesting. But now they generally make a stir primarily with their signiture issues like the Fobres 400 or the Fortune 500. That's a shame."

All of which could portend to media that's in a downward spiral.

There is some good news: Business Insider has some strong growth trends. BI hopes to reach 1M paid subscribers (currently there are 200,000), generate 1B unqiue visitors per month (currently it gets 375,000/month) and to double its newsroom. We'd love for that to be a new trend.

New York Times Validates Prediction about Local News

A headline in the New York Times validated one of our predictions for 2020 about the further decline of local news. The headline, "The Decimation of Local News Has Lawmakers Crossing the Aisle," while our prediction used the "decimation" in the explanation of why the continued loss of local news is significant.

In fact, the article cites the fear and mistrust in Big Tech that is our top trend for 2020. Here's a key paragraph from the New York Times article:

Anger toward big technology companies has led to multiple antitrust investigations, calls for a new federal data privacy law and criticism of the companies’ political ad policies. Perhaps no issue about the tech companies, though, has united lawmakers in the Capitol like the decimation of local news.

Lawmakers from both parties blame companies like Facebook and Google, which dominate the online ad industry.

 Interestingly, Congress may have a solution:

The proposal would give news organizations an exemption from antitrust laws, allowing them to band together to negotiate with Google and Facebook over how their articles and photos are used online, and what payments the newspapers get from the tech companies. (The bill is backed by the News Media Alliance, a trade group that represents news organizations including The New York Times Company.)

Check out the article for more details. 

We know some people blame the media for not finding a sustainable business model but we don't think it's a failure to adapt. It's just much harder to compete when you have to pay for reporters and editors when your competitors are picking up or linking to your articles, and are not paying or not paying enough to support real journalism.

We hope the proposal is successful.

2019 Was A Tough Year for the Media: Nearly 8,000 lost their jobs. It will continue in 2020

Last year started off badly for US journalism, with more than 1,000 job loses by February. Unfortunately, that trend continued, with more than 7,800 layoffs by December, according to a Business Insider article.

That's a startling number.

For context, BI noted that "it's estimated that some 5,000 media jobs were cut from the market from 2014 to 2017." So nearly 50 percent more losses in one year than were lost in three years combined.

What's surprising is that the layoffs didn't hit only newspapers. (1 in 5 local newspapers have closed down since 2004.)

There were big loses in big-name online sites including BuzzFeed, Vice Media, Verizon Media, Bustle, Quartz, and more. For Verizon's media units, Yahoo, AOL and Huffpost, there had been two sets of layoffs in 2019, resulting in the loss of 830 media jobs. (This does not include 10,400 losses-by-byouts in other Verizon jobs.)

Gannett, which merged with GateHouse Media in December to become the largest newspaper publisher by circulation, cut 400 jobs at its newspapers around the country, including US Today. Entrepreneur laid off four editorial staffer, restructuring on digital offerings. Jet, Ebony and New York Magazine announced lay offs, too. For us, a big sentimental loss was that of Mad magazine, which announced it would stop publishing new content, affecting 10 staffers and hundreds of freelancers.

The Washington Post eliminated its free commuter paper, the Express , after 16 years, because it found that the young readers it was aiming for no longer picked up a free -- that's right, free -- edition as they hopped on the Metro. That's because they accessed news on their phones (something that hadn't been around when the Express was launched). That's not the only free commuter newspaper to fold. Metro Boston, another free commuter paper, suddenly shut down this month after 19 years, after its sister publications, Metro New York and Metro Philadelphia, were sold. Metro Boston had a circulation of 300,000 in 2005 but fell to about 50,000 in 2019, the Boston Business Journal reported. 

Sports Illustrated, which was licensed to The Maven, cut "nearly 40 staffers...(with) plans to replace some full-time positions with contract" writers. And there are serious concerns about quality of the product because contract freelancrs are required to write many more articles for far less money -- especially upsetting because SI has long had the highest standards in sports journalism.

There were also broadcast losses at NBC, ESPN, NPR, CNN, Disney (as the result of its acquisition of 21st Century Fox movie studio).

The Youngtown Vindicator ceased publishing around its 150th anniversary, the Cleveland Plain Dealer laid off 12 additional newsroom employees along with as many as 30 production jobs. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch announced 23 jobs axed, Dallas Morning News eliminated about 20 newsroom jobs and the New Orleans Times-Picayune laid off all its staffers after being acquired by the Advocate, a competing newspaper.

The concern about the loss of local news media is that it has implications for the communities in whcih they operate. For example, local news media tend to be more trusted that national media. Local media help support local organizations in the community, helping to provide a sense of community. And they keep the community informed about issues affecting them.

U.S. news media used to be able to count on advertising and subscription revenue to fund operations but the shift to online or app has reduced both revenue streams, but especially advertising revenue. Unfortunately, with a few exceptions, there seems to be no sustainable business model that will help keep news outlets in business. We expect some uptick in revenue in battleground states, thanks to the presidential election but that won't last.

Which means: we expect more layoffs in 2020 and 2021. So we ask marketers to consider finding ways to support media.

Can Local Papers Survive?

I think they can. But it's not going to be a cakewalk. Local broadcasters are having trouble this year.

Check out an interesting profile in the Times by Richard Perez-Pena, "A Reporter With a ‘Tom Sawyer Business Plan’ Buys a Newspaper.

Can Local Bloggers Replace Local Newspapers?

According to BusinessWeek's media critic, Jon Fine, one of the problems facing advertisers -- and I'd add PR functions -- is that the demise of local papers makes it much more difficult to reach local markets.

In "Taming the Web for Local Advertisers," Fines' focus in on a company, GrowthSpur, that aims to connect businesses with fragmented audiences.

Fine makes the point that what's replacing local media are local bloggers, but that they're often one or two person operations for whom blogging is a hobby.

What's more, the problem with the fact that a "zillion local blogs have popped up" is that "some of them have real value. But the thing is, there's a zillion of them, and few have followings of any size, so you have to amalgamate ad buys across 10 or 15 blogs to get anything resembling a decent audience."

This fragmentaiton of local media is a significant challenge for organizations that want to reach local markets. GrowthSpur aims to assemble a network of local bloggers for advertiser. That may work nicely for advertisers, because they're paying bloggers for ads, that doesn't work as well for PR efforts since we don't pay for coverage.

And while some bloggers do expect swag or payments from companies to blog about their products or services, that's not appropriate or acceptable for many organizations, including our clients. Even if the bloggers disclose the fact that they've received payment or gifts in kind in exchange for a positive mention in their blogs.

In PR, we've got the same problem: We've got to target more local bloggers than we once had to when we targeted only local newspapers. Clients sometimes think that social media is a ticket to quick and inexpensive buzz -- but it often takes more effort to reach a similar result to a media campaign a few years ago.