On the Challenges of Small Newsrooms and Mobile Communication
by Doug Fisher, University of South Carolina
COMMUNITY JOURNALISM – Small, family-owned news organizations may have the best opportunity to take advantage of the digital pathway to reach their communities, but they also may be the most endangered by it and find it the most challenging.
I’ve come to that conclusion after working last summer in the newsroom of an 18,000-circulation community daily newspaper and after years of working with other editors and publishers at individual papers or small family-owned chains.
The health of these newsrooms is important to their communities. In many instances, as case studies at the Newspapers and Community-Building symposia have shown, they are among the few institutions willing and able to stand up to the power structure. Also, as has been widely noted, they generally are suffering less economically than their big-city counterpar ts.
Studies, some presented at Community Journalism Interest Group research sessions, have shown that a significant number have a limited or no online presence. Rather than scoff at that, we should consider that it also has allowed them to bypass many of the online mistakes made by their big-city brethren.
But there also is a stark reality: Those are not newspapers hanging from the belts and in the purses of their readers. They are cell phones that are rapidly turning into complete mobile communication platforms. And they promise to forever change the communication landscape, even in the smallest of communities.
This is a fertile area for research that we hope to see more of at COMJIG: How are mobile devices being used and are they changing communication patterns in small communities as much as they appear to be in larger ones? [Read more ...]
