What is clear to us here at The Edinburgh Reporter is that there is a new kind of journalism in the UK. Online sites such as our own, The Lichfield Blog, SE1, King’s Cross Local Environment in England (to name but a very few) and, of course, The Caledonian Mercury, a Scottish web based publication,which is digital, although not entirely hyperlocal, are forging a path in digital journalism. Trying to make it pay is not always easy. The Lichfield Blog asks you to buy them a pint on their site, The Caledonian Mercury has recently admitted that, despite its alleged 100,000 visitors a month, they cannot make their model pay through advertising alone and have requested donations from their visitors.
In the US today however there is a new media entity following the news that AOL have bought The Huffington Post for $315m. The Huffington Post, started in 2005 by “the most upwardly mobile Greek since Icarus”, Arianna Huffington, is an online news outlet which takes blogging to its ultimate. The guest bloggers have included luminaries from Barack Obama to Robert Redford, and they use all forms of multimedia to tell the stories. You can watch the video of the announcement here..
What is exciting from the hyperlocal perspective is that by merging The Huffington Post with AOL they are also merging with Patch.com which is a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL and which concentrates on….you guessed it HYPERLOCAL NEWS! Patch.com covers many US states, and declares its mission to be “To improve the quality of life in underserved communities across the globe through access to trusted local news and information.”
So if Arianna’s listening and if she would like to add a Scottish hyperlocal to the portfolio….then do get in touch…
