The purpose of the Westside Community News Project (WCNP) is to provide sound, fair and thorough reporting of civic and community life in West Los Angeles.
|
The following column recently appeared in Realty Times, a real estate trade Web site: CAUTION! - Your Newspaper May Not Be Providing "News" by Bill Ball Have you ever noticed that the cover page of the Saturday and Sunday Real Estate Section of your local paper inevitably have a headline like: "RJR Developers Announce Opening of Laguna Grande?" The fact is that what is printed there is simply a reproduction of the promotional material prepared by the advertising and public relations divisions of RJR Developers. What really happened is that RJR signed a one-year contract for a half-page advertisement in the weekend editions and, in return, they received a front page "news" piece announcing their new project. Or, they outright purchased the story above the fold. The reason weekend Real Estate Sections have become advertising venues is that the advertising sales division of the newspaper took over the Real Estate Section and news reporters were reassigned beginning back in the 1990's. If Truth-in-Advertising were practiced, the Real Estate Sections of these papers should have printed at the top of every page - "ADVERTISEMENT" - regardless of what is printed below. My local paper has re-titled the section calling it: REAL ESTATE promotional feature. I looked through last weekend’s editions and the total number of actual "news" stories in Saturday’s and Sunday’s Real Estate Sections were two out of 27, plus five columnists giving advice. The rest of the articles were only advertising puff pieces. Even the two news stories were not about our local market, so we had NO LOCAL real estate news in our local paper! Here’s a hint: If the byline is "Special to the _____" it means a PR person for the company featured wrote it. So that article headlined "RJR’s Laguna Grande Sales Soar" is only the wishful thinking of the sales and marketing division of that developer. Published: July 1, 2003 |
The WCNP uses a public broadcasting business model to build a news organization to do the nuts-and-bolts civic reporting that we have historically relied on newspapers to provide.
The traditional business model for a small community news organization is the advertising supported newspaper. In this model, an audience is assembled by the free distribution of the paper throughout the community, which is paid for by advertisers who wish to reach that community.
Today, advertisers have a myriad of choices to reach their customers, and the community newspaper has to compete with all of them for the advertising dollar. In this highly competitive and price sensitive market, costs have to be absolutely minimized.
In a newspaper, every column inch of news represents a cost, and every column inch of advertising represents revenue, multiplied by distribution. The competitive imperative of the free market is to minimize costs and maximize revenue, which translates in the newspaper business into: minimize the news and maximize the advertising, then increase the distribution multiplier.
Thus community newspapers are replaced by direct mailers or merged into larger media conglomerates.
Independent funding
In order to fulfill its mission, the WCNP must be free from the influence of commercial interests. For-profit enterprises are by definition compelled to maximize profits, and inevitably a for-profit news organization will put financial values ahead of news values. Small newspapers are especially vulnerable to powerful commercial interests and often shape editorial content in order gain and satisfy advertisers.
The WCNP will organize as a non-profit and seek funding from a variety of sources, including foundation grants, community donations, subsciptions, and licensing fees.
Public domain content
The product of a commercial news organization is by definition proprietary, and in order to maximize the value of that product, it must be controlled and withheld for whoever will pay the most for it. This is demonstrated by the current trend of commercial newspapers to require a fee to view the paper's news archive. The WCNP, on the other hand, will produce news for the community that immediately becomes part of the public domain, readily and freely available in perpetuity.
Civic news values
Civic news is often boring. Occasionally, there is an issue that is important to many people, but usually only a few people are interested in the civic news of the day. Commercial news organizations, in order to maximize profits, have to maximize their audience, and since civic news does not have wide audience appeal, civic news does not get thorough coverage in commercial media.
The WCNP is dedicated to the principle that civic news is important news, if not popular news. The practice of journalism, in and of itself, contributes to healthy civic and community life. The act of reporting, even to a small audience, has a beneficial effect on the quality of decisions made in the public interest.
Editor, reporter and a Web site
The mission of the WCNP can be accomplished with an editor, a reporter and a Web site. With minimal funding, the WCNP can be launched with a volunteer editor, volunteer reporters, and a donated Web site. As funding is obtained and grows, the quality and quantity of the news will increase. The primary goal after launch would be to obtain enough funding to hire a professional editor and at least one professional reporter.