How Patch Has Quietly ‘Bootstrapped’ Itself Into 36 NYC Neighborhoods

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Patch CEO Warren St. John tells our columnist Tom Grubisich why he decided to bet big on hyperlocal news in New York City while other local publishers were shutting down or threatening to do so, retrenching or selling out.

How Facebook’s Big Changes Impact One Local Publisher — Some Surprising Conclusions

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“It looks as if Facebook’s changes are only going to help New Canaanite’s visibility in the news feeds of our Facebook followers and their networks,” Michael Dinan, the site’s founder, told our columnist Tom Grubisich.

How Publishers Can Survive Facebook Churn: Top Expert Weighs In — Part II

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“The smaller scale might be an advantage when it comes to trust,” Grzegorz Piechota told Tom Grubisich. “Local publishers can offer services Facebook will never be able to provide at a global scale such as checking all the facts, verifying all the ads, or providing a 100% guarantee of brand-safe context.”

How Publishers Can Survive Facebook Churn: Top Expert Weighs In — Part I

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To help make sense of this sometimes-chaotic state of affairs and find solutions for local news publishers, I went to an expert who I think would be on just about any short list of Facebook demystifiers, Grzegorz Piechota.

Local Media Consortium Partners With IAS to Fight Web Ad Fraud

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To fight the pervasive web fraud crisis, the Local Media Consortium, which represents more than 75 local news media companies with 1,700+ digital publications, is partnering with the global data firm Integral Ad Science (IAS), which each day measures and analyzes the quality of 500 billion media metrics.

From DNAinfo’s Ashes, Three News Vets Are Launching Their Phoenix in Chicago

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The site’s non-billionaire founders aim to succeed with a radically different revenue strategy from their DNAinfo alma mater — their plan for domination does not include advertising. In this Q & A, director of strategy Jen Sabella tells how she and her partners are mapping a new way to make local news work.

Dr. Soon-Shiong and His New ‘Patient,’ the L.A. Times: Will His Rx Be ‘Local’?

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My hunch is that Patrick Soon-Shiong will find that applying advanced technology to local news is not as challenging as conquering cancer, especially if he listens to what Angelinos say is their biggest concern by a wide margin – getting from their home to work or other day-to-day destinations.

With 66 Franchises, TAPinto Is Ready to Expand Up and Down Coast

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TAPinto has grown into a network of 71 hyperlocal news sites, 66 of them operated by independent franchisees and five owned by CEO Mike Shapiro. Most of the sites are in North and Central New Jersey and five are in New York City suburbs in the Westchester area north of the city.

Out of Its Rocky Recent Past, Philly.com Seeks to Be ‘Indispensable’

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Philadelphia Media Network is building its future around a reorganized and united news operation that aims to produce more engaging editorial content with fewer editors and reporters and sell the package to readers of Philly.com for $2.99 a week after 10 free views. We recently caught up with PMN Editor and VP Gabriel Escobar to discuss this strategy.

Three Candles to Light in Dark Times for Local News and Journalists

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The news about local news hasn’t been good lately. But there have been three recent positive signals helping to balance the scales in the form of a digital newsgathering tool, a new survey about trust, and the survival of an important hyperlocal network in Brooklyn.

Nucleus Marketing’s Mission for 2018: Make Media Buyers Believe in News

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CEO Seth Rogin spoke with Street Fight about how the company combats fraud in web advertising, brings personalization to marketing and tries to convert young media buyers into buying space on premium news sites.

Facebook Brings Users to Local Sites — But the Rest Is Up to the Sites

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The verdict is in: local news publishers do need Facebook, Google and other giant distribution platforms. But only to get the first part of the job done. Whether you’re a self-funded entrepreneurial pure-play publisher or a corporate chain of daily newspapers, you can’t, on your own, generate all the traffic that the platforms deliver to your site.

Why Even Top Local News Sites Can’t Compete With Facebook on Ads

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Facebook isn’t going away, and it shouldn’t, for local news providers. But news providers will use their own resources to engage the fraction of traffic that chooses to make its way to the narrow part of the funnel and into the subscription revenue pot.

As the Local News Industry Struggles, Publishers Ask Readers to Pay

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The local news industry, fighting for survival, is turning its readers into customers. Sites are either charging readers for premium content — after up to 10 free visits a month — or setting up “membership” programs where readers make voluntary monthly or yearly payments.

LMA Goes Small to Spread Disruptive Ideas Among Local Publishers

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A recent Innovation Mission to San Francisco/Silicon Valley drew 13 senior executives in the news business (newspapers, TV, radio and research and development). It was built around three themes: audience engagement, platform strategies and using human-centered “design thinking” to solve thorny problems that bedevil most news providers.

Will ‘Moonlighting’ Startup Help Newspapers Regain Classified Revenue?

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Three major local newspaper groups — McClatchy, Gannett and tronc — are partnering with Moonlighting to build a new, mobile-first base for their job classifieds, which were a big revenue source in the print era but have been devastated by new-generation digital sites.

Big Political Ad Spend Set for Local in 2018, but Will News Sites Be Ready?

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Political ad spending totaling $1.9 billion will pour into the digital space, most of it on the local level, Borrell Associates estimates in its 2018 forecast. But daily newspapers and local news “pure-plays” will have to fight hard for their share against Facebook, Google and the other digital platforms.

Bklyner Announces It Will Shut Down Unless It Hits Subscriber Goal by Dec. 31

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The Brooklyn-based hyperlocal network has announced it will close down coverage of its 11 neighborhoods unless it can attain 3,230 digital subscribers by the end of December. In this Q & A Bklyner founder Liena Zagare, presents the stark facts about her publication’s 11-hour predicament.

McClatchy’s Chris Hendricks Signs Off After a Long Digital-First Career

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McClatchy’s Chris Hendricks has often been my GPS on where daily newspapers, including his company, were in finding their legs on the constantly shifting ground of digital publishing. But starting tomorrow morning, I won’t be able to get any more positional readouts from Hendricks.

Smaller Newspapers Are Doing Just Fine, Thank You, New Report Finds

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Smaller-market papers, with 50,000 or smaller print circulation, are doing quite well overall compared with their larger counterparts, according to the new report by Damian Radcliffe and Christopher Ali. In this Q & A, Ali explains the contrary success of these numerous smaller papers.