Has the moment finally arrived for the flourishing of local, digital-native news businesses?
A case can be made that it has, though I’ll admit that I thought that was true as long ago as 2008, when I began watching California’s hyperlocal news sites at USC’s Center for Communication Leadership and Policy.
The three dozen or so new digital enterprises we were studying then were full of ambition and promise – even though they collectively met Jan Schaffer’s famous description of hyperlocals as “not yet a business.” These California digital entrepreneurs were leading a revolution that looked, to me anyway, quite ready to take off.
But for the most part it wasn’t ready. It’s perplexing, to say the least, that seven years later, digital local news sites have made only halting progress toward shedding Schaffer’s “not yet” label.
Only in rare cases, involving rare people, have new local news initiatives robustly sustained their way. The business models that would enable a true flowering of digital local news have not yet emerged.
But things may be looking up, at least a little. Continue reading An opening for local news startups?