The media landscape -- especially newspapers -- has changed dramatically in Connecticut in the past decade. Many daily or weekly papers have stopped publishing altogether, while others have severely cut back on their page counts and/or departments, as a result of rising costs and competition from the Internet.
But Greater New Haven has proven to be a source of innovation in on-line-only local journalism. One of the earliest is the New Haven Independent, which debuted just after Labor Day, 2005. It was started by Paul Bass, a local journalist for more than 30 years who had co-founded the short-lived print version of the Independent in the mid-1980s.
Back in the infancy of on-line journalism, Bass was incubating the idea of a hyper-local news outlet -- one that would cover New Haven government, politics, education, business development, and the city's neighborhoods in depth. He set it up as a non-profit. "I had experience in the for-profit model and thought it wouldn't work," he says, adding that he read on a journalism website "about the idea of journalism as a public utility like water or air, and a light went off in my head -- try the NPR [National Public Radio] model." Funding comes from both foundations and individuals. What drives the coverage -- and the funding -- is a public interest mission "that the way you make your budget is by doing something valuable for society." He says that whereas the New Haven Independent used to be 75 percent foundation-funded, now it's closer to 50 percent, and the change has mostly come from major individual donors who provide general support.
As one of the first on-line news sites in the country, he says visitors initially confused it with a blog site, where writers opined on topics of their choice in a process that could be compared to the op-ed pages of a newspaper, but not the newspaper itself. The Independent, Bass says, "is a professional news reporting site and uses the format of the web to do it in a new way -- to have readers involved, to post video, to update it all the time. When readers started getting all their news from it, they realized it was a news site. Our mission is to cover New Haven in depth; smart, fair news reporting and analysis that sparks the most diverse, engaged moderated public discussion that I've seen anywhere.” From the beginning, The New Haven Independent has attracted readers holding a wide range of views, and it's not unusual to have 50, 60 or even 100 comments on controversial stories -- this in contrast to four to six letters to the editor on all stories in a daily print paper.
Of the thousands of stories posted over the past six years, Bass is especially proud of the Independent's coverage of several issues: the 2007 immigration raids; school reform; housing foreclosures; and board and commission meetings that illegally excluded the public. He adds, "We led the way on how to do local election coverage."
Interactivity is a major benefit to on-line news sites. From the New Haven Independent, one can access SeeClickFix.org, co-founded by New Havener Ben Berkowitz in 2008. The goal of the online portal, he says, “is to increase citizen participation in improving the community around them. When you get more citizens speaking up, they begin to feel they are a bigger part of the solution.” Residents of New Haven who follow the SeeClickFix.org link on the Independent can report a problem – say, a pothole, a broken street light, or criminal activity – and the complaint goes directly to the relevant city department to be addressed. Of the hundreds of examples of the process at work, he mentions the collaboration between SeeClickFix, the Safe Streets Coalition and the City’s Department of Transportation, Traffic and Parking in placing in-street pedestrian crossing signs around town.
In 2009, Bass applied for a grant to set up a sister site in the Naugatuck Valley, called the Valley Independent Sentinel. Since the Valley lost its last daily newspaper several years ago, it was a good choice for an on-line hyper-local news site. He got his biggest grant ever -- $500,000 from the Knight Foundation, administered through The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven -- for a two-year start-up. The site has three FTE staff and is linked to the New Haven site, as is the Branford Eagle, a labor of love by Branford resident and former New York Times reporter Marcia Chambers.
Chambers says she started the site as a column in April 2006. “I focused on government, politics and the courts, topics that were largely going unreported in Branford. I covered town meetings, indeed I taped them. In this new era of on-line journalism I became a photographer as well.”
In early 2010, the Eagle transitioned to an on-line community newspaper. “We were the first in town,” she says, “after the Branford Review, one of a number of print weeklies owned by the Journal-Register Company, folded.” Two laid-off Review staffers joined the Eagle staff, as well as a former photographer there. “We have also trained high school and college interns and even a blogger; and The Branford Eagle also has its own public access television program,” she adds. “Our primary goal is to provide our readers with the knowledge they need to make decisions about their town. We dig in order to give our readers the information they need and want. Sometimes good journalism takes time to do. We don’t let the demands of the internet get in the way of our goal. ”
The site is now providing in-depth coverage on state and local government, local politics, the recession, the schools, the environment, the police and fire departments, and more. Chambers is proud that in 2011, The Branford Eagle won a dozen on-line awards from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists.
Considered a national model, Bass is asked for advice all the time by others who want to make the leap to on-line journalism. This is what he tells them: "Find people who want to support journalism as a public mission not as a tool to support them or their institution. Get enough money to start out so you can pay people. Moderate all your comments so [the site] doesn't become a sewer."
In January 2010 a statewide site debuted on the same non-profit, foundation-funded model: the CT Mirror. Its mission is to promote civic engagement by covering public policy and state government, explains publisher and CEO Jim Cutie, "but the reporting we do affects everybody around the state. We cover issues like the environment, education, human services, health, social services, social justice. Our job is to create non-partisan journalism and distribute it throughout the state. We work with local media outlets of all types, radio and TV stations, print newspapers, on-line [like the Independent]. Ten of the 17 daily newspapers in the state license our content for free, because we want to spread the information. We use Twitter and Facebook. Ten percent of our readers read us on a mobile device." And he notes that the Mirror is the only Connecticut media outlet with a full-time reporter in Washington, D.C. covering the Connecticut delegation.
"Our mission is not a zero sum game," Cutie says. "It's not to be at the expense of any other media, but to supplement what they do."
Broadening the Mirror's outreach, he says the content is available in 50 languages with Google Translator, because you never know who's out there browsing the web.
A unique feature of the site is a detailed look at the state budget -- more detailed than a print outlet could ever hope to publish.
CTMirror funding comes from foundation grants, personal donations, underwriting and, as of fall 2011, ads from businesses. "It's a fine line between underwriting and ads but to the reader it's not so clear-cut," Cutie says. "Some things that look like ads are technically sponsorships. We decided not to take political campaign ads; it could be confusing to the reader because one or two campaigns can dominate; we wanted to protect our non-partisan position. What we can't do is use advertising to advocate for a position ourselves; underwriting doesn't allow a call to action or superlative claims. Our sponsorships are really looking to reach a reader of a certain type -- a policy maker [or other] decision-maker."
He says if ads constitute 15 percent or more of a non-profit's income, "your non profit status might be questioned" by the IRS. And, like Bass, he points out that it's important to disconnect donations from the content on the site, "because people want it free; we try to position it as a way to inform people and serve as a watchdog and engage not just citizens but also policy decision-makers. We think of it as a way to leverage investment because our content ends up in so many other places. The great thing about a non-profit with a focused mission is that besides the mission itself you basically have a goal of a finite amount of money you need to do the job -- you're not just growing for its own sake like a for-profit. That allows us to reinvest back into our focused mission."And, though he hates to say so, he concludes, "I do think print newspapers will disappear over time; digital is the way to go."
The same year the Independent debuted, another statewide site called Connecticut News Junkie also went on-line, originally as a one-person blog but then developing into a news site covering the state capitol, and using a for-profit model. Doug Hardy is the business manager and new media developer, and his wife, Christine Stuart, is the editor and chief reporter. She covers all aspects of state government, and it's a sign of the times that she's often one of just a few reporters in the press room at the Capitol -- a room that used to buzz with the capitol reporters of all the major and some not so major dailies in the state. That was one of the biggest changes in media coverage, along with the elimination of reporters covering Washington, D.C.
Hardy says the site hasn't turned a profit yet but "it's bringing in revenue, and we're reinvesting it back into content." Many stories are cross-posted to the Independent, and vice versa. Although they cover a lot of the same news territory, Hardy says the difference between the News Junkie and the Mirror is, "They have grant funding and are under no pressure to generate traffic, whereas we have to be web savvy, have to post more often, and pay attention to the traffic. The Mirror's traffic is 20 percent above ours, and they're giving away their content; we didn't think it's appropriate to give it away."
Hardy says the Junkie's capitol coverage model is an incubator. "We're finding a lot of local officials are now reading the site. The entrepreneurial journalism model is coming to bear; we partnered with Local on-line News TV and created the Independent Media Network, which includes 56 Connecticut websites, most town-based. None are sustainable yet. We're trying to make sure nobody's remaking the wheel. Many journalists [at traditional outlets] are being laid off -- a lot of democracy is not being reported on."
The network includes some well-known Connecticut political blogs, such as CT Watchdog.com, MyLeftNutmeg.com and TheHangingShad.com. The network as a whole garners four million page views a month, while CTnewsjunkie.com gets 200,000 (about a third of those being unique visitors).
Stuart says her biggest story was coverage of the ups and downs between the state workers' unions and Gov. Dannel Malloy, which also generated prolific and often over-heated comments. "We moderate every comment, which was really difficult during that period -- there were a lot of nasty comments going around. There shouldn't be any personal attacks and the post should address the content of the article. Sometimes I contact a commenter to tell them why their comment isn't appropriate, and I'll say I can post some of it but not all."
She says the appearance of the CTMirror has boosted traffic on her site, even though both sites cover much of the same content. "Everybody has stepped up their game," she says, both on-line and in print.
She says the media landscape has changed drastically just in the last 5 years. "Then Facebook was only on college campuses and Twitter didn't even exist yet, so I'd send out weekly email blasts to our readers. In March [2011] we started sending a Monday-Thursday tip sheet for people who are really involved in the capitol, with links to agendas for public meetings, etc. We also send out the Friday Night Fix, with a summary of what's gone on during the week." Stuart says all these things have boosted traffic on the site.
The for-profit model has also inspired a network of 860 local on-line news sites in 22 states and the District of Columbia, called Patch, including 64 in Connecticut. Patch sites cover mostly suburbs and smaller towns. As weekly community newspapers decline, Patch sites are increasing. These sites are managed by a local editor/reporter and are a "destination for the community so no one would have to miss cool events in their town. Its mission statement is to make life ridicuously easy for you and your neighbors," says Gary Jeanfaivre, a regional editor who manages ten Patch sites in New Haven County.
The sites also cover local news, like government meetings, though short in form that differs greatly from the in-depth reporting found elsewhere. School sports are a huge part of the mix.
"We're not looking to take the place of any existing local newspaper; there's a lot of good work still being done out there,"Jeanfaivre says. "In those communities where there is no local news coverage we're certainly filling a void, but what's really exciting about Patch is that the platform we've created is not a one-way street as traditional news is; it's a very interactive and user-friendly website; anyone in the community can post their own event, their own announcements. It's a place for community discussion and dialogue, whether they want to get news, find events, or the hours or website of a local business."
Of the for-profit model he says, "Absolutely it's a place for local businesses to advertise and help them reach their customers; there are some national advertisers, too. We also accept ads from political candidates."
Jeanfaivre says he can't divulge data related to traffic on the site, and doesn't have profitability information at his disposal, but adds, "We're pleased with the response we're seeing from the community and the engagement we're seeing. We don't have a story quota but we recognize the fact that we are running a 24/7 website that we want to make sure is kept fresh, so you'll see multiple updates several times a day." Those come not just from the reporter/editor, but from readers. "That constitutes valuable content," he says, like letters to the editor or a story about a special school project.
In fact, anyone can post directly to their local site, which Jeanfaivre says has "broken down barriers and empowered the community." It also risks lowering the overall quality and threatens to create the kind of "sewer" that Bass avoids by moderating the posts to his site. Jeanfaivre says that anyone posting content must agree to abide by the Patch terms of use, which prohibit personal attacks. He adds that after items are posted, "We do monitor the contents to make sure posts are in compliance; if not we could take it down or contact the user to modify it. We really view ourselves as a service," he concludes, where readers can find information " about an impending storm, or town council, or event going on in the community. Patch is a place to connect."
Even traditional print media have developed their online presence to engage local communities in this digital age. For example, the New Haven Register, a daily newspaper covering Greater New Haven since the 1800s, has steadily been expanding its online presence through the launch of its Community Media Lab, an online blogging network that links to and helps promote the work of bloggers who cover topics or neighborhoods that the paper may not have the resources to cover. Most recently, it partnered with SeeClickFix for a project called Town Resolutions 2012. In his blog on the Register’s site, Community Engagement Editor Ed Stannard explained the concept: “All we need you to do is submit ideas for issues and problems in Greater New Haven that you believe need attention. Then we’ll follow up for the rest of the year to see if we can make progress in improving.” The Register is launching an “open newsroom” at their new offices in downtown New Haven later in the year “where the public will be invited to participate in and observe local journalism.”
No matter which online news site you visit, there are lots of opportunities to connect to and engage with your local community.
© The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven
January 2012