Welcome to the Local Fix. Each week we look at key debates in journalism sustainability and community engagement through the lens of local news.  But first, we always begin with one good idea…

One Good Idea: Finding America
Localore’s Finding America project seeks to tell deeply local and largely untold stories. They are doing incredible work with small newsrooms around the country.  This week they debuted a “digital open notebook” which combines more than 50 social media feeds from their 15 experiments and invites public participation. Read more background at Storybench.

Comments and Abuse

Our industry has not yet adequately addressed the pressing issue of harassment of female journalists but we are encouraged to see it getting more attention. If you have not seen these three projects below, take time out of your day to read and watch these pieces. Then share them. Too often, this abuse happens right out in the open — on social media, in comment sections — but still remains largely invisible in our public debate. 

• The dark side of Guardian comments: “The Guardian commissioned research into the 70m comments left on its site since 2006 and discovered that of the 10 most abused writers eight are women, and the two men are black.” 
• Meet the woman drowning out trolls that harass female writers: “Michelle Ferrier’s experience with harassment didn’t start online, but that’s where she’s fighting back.” 
• The #MoreThanMean video puts real guys face to face with female sports journalists and asks them to read the comments and tweets they get on a daily basis. 

Revenue and Engagement

When we talk about audience centric revenue models we often think about subscriptions and memberships. But there are a lot of ways that our community can and should influence how we think about revenue. And there is even potential to innovate around user needs in terms of paywalls and advertising. We believe that creating ways to put our community at the heart of our business strategy is going to increasingly be a core competency for sustainable newsrooms. 

• Quartz’s director of revenue has been arguing for awhile that we need to develop revenue products not just for advertisers but for users too. This applies to ads but also to other kinds of newsroom products.  
• A major metro daily – The Dallas Morning News – and a tiny hyperlocal – Village Green NJ – both introduced paywalls this week and it is worth looking at how they make the case to their audiences. One interesting point about each: 1) The Dallas paper has a geographically aware paywall in which local people get 10 free articles and non-local readers get 5. 2) Village Green NJ had a paywall on their newsletter since their launch and found people willing to pay so now they are expanding to the rest of their site. 
• Digiday’s Nick Friese told NiemanLab that they have “11 different ways that we make money here,” but they have never taken venture funding. A few of their revenue streams include “advertising, content marketing, job postings, and various live events.”

Journalists as Advocates

A lot of local journalists say that they got into reporting because they wanted to make their communities better. When does that drive to improve your local community push a journalist from reporter into advocate? Below are three examples of places where journalists are mixing advocacy and journalism in support of the public interest. This kind of work may not suit all newsrooms but we think the examples below raise interesting questions that are worth exploring.

• How a Florida newspaper began advocating for better bike safety – Columbia Journalism Review 
• A Call for Journalists as Advocates in an Era of Information Overload – Mediashift 
• The Journalist as Advocate: Is There Any Other Kind? – Undark 

Hey Local Fix readers! You might have heard about some changes in the land of the Local Fix. One of our authors is headed to a new position to continue working on strengthening local news, community engagement and media innovation. We expect to keep working together to bring you hands on advice and concrete lessons each week, but we are taking a short hiatus during the transition. Feel free to reach out with any questions!

Have a good weekend,
Molly and Josh 

The Local Fix is a project of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation’s Local News Lab, a website where we are exploring creative experiments in journalism sustainability.