The other day I whined about the challenges of covering a multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual beat. Such diversity is a blessing (and I don’t use that term often), but all those story angles can shmear thin an already small newsroom.
It’s something that’s bugged me for a while, though it clocked me square in the face this summer. With a sizable Pakistani-American community here, larger news organizations — namely The Christian Science Monitor and Al Jazeera — tapped residents for their takes on relief efforts in Pakistan’s flood zones, development of a Muslim community center near the World Trade Center site, and the arrest of Faisal Shazad, a Pakistani American who confessed to planting a car bomb in Times Square.
All of them were good angles on national and international news stories, and they offered insight into one segment of the neighborhood. But as a hyperlocalist, would such stories be within the scope of my publication? Would I have to write similar stories around the zillion other immigrant groups in my hood — the Tibetan Americans’ take on China’s activity in their homeland? The Venezuelan-American reaction to whatever Hugo Chavez has to say? And on and on.
It’s enough to drive a hyperlocalist insane.
That’s when the Poynter Institute’s News University came to my rescue. (For the uninitiated, News U offers journalists online training, some of it free, much of it cheap, nearly all of it good.) Its free, self-guided seminar called “Reporting Global Issues Locally” offered tips on how to tie international events with local issues, without driving a newsroom into the ground and without necessarily focusing on only one immigrant group.
First, the course suggested taking inventory of a beat’s ethnic groups, spoken languages and immigrants’ countries of origin. Done. Next was an inventory of a beat’s big industries. In my case, those are restaurants and specialty food shops; grooming services and general retail; medical services, thanks to a nearby hospital; residential real estate; and automotive sales and repairs.
Then the magic happened. The course listed five international-news topics that could influence news on a local level:
- The wars and national security
- Business and the economy
- Immigration
- Health and the environment
- A catch-all heading that included religion, education, culture and sports.
And instead of just tying international stories with the local immigrants’ reactions, the course illustrated how these international events can truly impact everyone in the hood, regardless of their ethnic or national backgrounds. For example, international trade tariffs and product recalls can affect sales at local retail shops, regardless of which segment of the community patronizes those shops. Immigration reform can alter hiring practices across all local industries, whether it’s food servers for the hood’s restaurants, or doctors and nurses at the nearby hospital and its satellite facilities.
In other words, it’s not about the hyperlocal angle on international news. Instead, it’s about the international angle on hyperlocal news. Despite the neighborhood’s global roots, the fact is it is one cohesive neighborhood. Its residents might not share a common heritage or language, but they share the immigrant experience, life as Americans (legally or not), and in the case of my new beat, life as New Yorkers.
The course also discusses possible sources of information, but I haven’t gotten that far into it yet. I’ll save that post for when I get around to it.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user bondidwhat.




The fashion report
So it was with great interest that I read this recent article in The New York Times about a startup clothing company that allows its customers to design their own shirts. Shoppers visit the company’s website, pick out colors, patterns and cuff styles, drop some coin and in four weeks, they’re rocking personalized gear.
The company’s success is rooted in its “emotional-value proposition,” says the company’s 22-year-old CEO. (Freakin’ hipster!) Customers play a part in the creative process, and what results is a personalized shirt that oozes individual expression. Okay.
That got me thinking: If consumers will pay to design a shirt, would they pay to participate in hyperlocal content creation? Does the emotional-value proposition apply to hyperlocal news? No and yes.
First, anyone who will pay to generate content is an advertiser. Consumers can usually distinguish an advertisement from editorial content because ads are labeled as such. But when an advertiser’s content is passed off as news, or if the hyperlocalist accepts compensation for creating “advertorial” content, then the news outlet’s objectivity comes into question.
Next, no one should create news content for the purpose of self-expression without fair compensation. That’s what larger media outlets like Forbes.com and The Washington Post call “content for exposure” (or more precisely, content for exploitation), and the practice only dilutes the quality of an organization’s content.
Instead, the emotional-value proposition can apply to opportunities for consumer feedback. A moderated comment section adds tremendous value to a news website. (The same goes for editorial essays printed on paper or broadcast as sound or video.) The opportunity to offer constructive criticism allows news consumers to express interest in their community, and the interaction reflects the news organization’s worth in the community.
That quality is perhaps the strongest selling point when approaching advertisers, sponsors and subscribers. It means that consumers do more than just consume a media outlet’s content. They assign value to it, they incorporate the information into their decision making, they allow it to influence their lives. That kind of quality far outweighs a website’s page views, a newspaper’s circulation or a broadcast outlet’s audience numbers.
The emotional-value proposition also applies to crowd-sourced content, but one should approach that with caution. I’ll get into that tomorrow.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Kirsten Hartsoch.