The following is a post for a graduate school class. - ldb

Public Media 2.0 appears to be journalism of the people, by the people and for the people. It is democratic journalism.

With Public Media 2.0, journalism is participatory — delivered electronically across physical distances, but also delivered across social, economic and political boundaries.

My colleagues and I in the public affairs industry have been engaging and courting consumer-generated hyper-local news outlets for a couple of years. In the Seattle, Wash., area we work with EverydayOlympia.com, Westseattleblog.com, Exit133.com and many more. There are several dozen that my staff and I regularly engage. In Seattle, we also have seen former Seattle Post Intelligencer reporters start the SeattlePostGlobe.org, and former local independent journalists start Publicola.net.

We treat representatives of these outlets as reporters. We consider their readers important audiences precisely because they are geographically oriented, a goldmine for public relations pros. All news is local, right?

Last February my friends and I lamented the demise of the Seattle PI, re-created as some kind of journalistic Frankenstein as the Seattlepi.com. At that time I suggested that the news industry would have to evolve some kind of new business model or news as we know it in this country was gone forever.

I think I was half right. The news industry as we know it is gone forever. While the hyper-local media still represents a small segment of the industry, they are fast becoming agenda setters driving local discussion. They are generating local readers.

Ultimately, I think their secret to success will not come from the user-generated content or their intensely local focus. Public Media 2.0 outlets’ success will come from their ability to generate “conversations” among neighbors. Check out this site for an example, http://frontporchforum.com/about/.

Finally, Twitter and other status update tools seem to be driving the “news” conversations even more local. A study by Rutgers researchers claims that 80 percent of Twitter users are “meformers,” people who send update “Tweets” about themselves. Just one in five Twitter users are “informers,” people who pass along information about other things.

Yes, all news is local. Or, as my wife and I joke, “It’s all about me.”

Reference

http://news.rutgers.edu/medrel/news-releases/2009/09/study-reveals-two-ty-20090929