Zac Echola is muffin but trouble

Think it: PEJ State of the News Media

Published on 17/03/08
by Zac Echola

Today is my wedding anniversary, so I haven’t had a chance to read the entire report yet, but I’ve skimmed through some of the online section.

This part really struck me:

If the Web is all about democratization of the news and the flow of information, there is an interesting chasm in the priority of news public interest. Through the year, the one area that the public consistently said the press gave too much attention to was foreign news.

To me that says people look for national/international news at national/international Web sites and they want local content on their local sites. I know we’ve been talking hyperlocal for years, but there hasn’t been a lot of research in what readers actually want out of a local site (the hyperlocal argument having been previously focused on local audience growth through search engines, because there’s much less competition for those local keywords).

Now that doesn’t mean foreign coverage is dying, far from it. It means that if you’re going to cover national and international events, cover them with a local angle. Or, conversely, compete for national/international markets on a different platform and scale that caters to people in the market for that kind of coverage.

Interesting stuff. I’ll have more analysis later in the week.

The end. Or is it?

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