Last month CL wrote about AOL Patch, the new hyperlocal news group that will soon be having websites reporting from communities all over in the Tampa Bay area (there are now 3 live sites up reporting from the Bay area; In downtown St. Pete, Bradenton and Sarasota).
The term “hyperlocal” has become the hottest phrase used with news organizations in 2010. What does it mean? I’ve never seen an actual definition, but it has come to mean reporting local/community area news online.
Now WTSP-Channel 10 (are they still calling themselves “10 connects”?) is getting into the game, big-time. On Tuesday, Ken Tonning, the President and General Manager of 10 News, announced that the station has launched no fewer than 40 (!) new hyper-local news throughout the Tampa Bay. From their website:
Each “In Your Neighborhood” site will cover the local news of its intended community, promote the community’s events , include a local business directory and post local real estate listings. Local members of each community will be invited to submit content which will be combined with local coverage from the 10 News staff to create constantly updated, relevant websites.
“This is the logical evolution of on-line news coverage,” said Tonning while making the announcement. “We already offer top-notch coverage of events across the Tampa Bay region, throughout the state of Florida and across the nation on wtsp.com. Now visitors to wtsp.com will also be able to find news and information specifically about their neighborhood.”
We’re sure that after the sites have been up for awhile they’ll start being filled with new & original content. But after clicking on the Downtown Tampa -Ybor City link, we see most of the stories are ones that have already appeared on 10 News. We appreciate seeing Mike Deeson’s story on whether race plays a part into how permits are issued at Channelside, as well as Noah Pransky’s story on a proposal to move up the date for next year’s City Council elections in St. Pete. There is also appears to be one web producer (named Summer Lott) who is keeping quite busy collecting and posting content for many of the 40 different community sites.
Also we found a lot of shared stories – for instance, the news that about the improved school grades throughout high schools throughout the state was found on nearly every one of the individual links that we found.
This article appears in Dec 9-15, 2010.
