This week, read the following:
- Pleasantville news stories from outlets such as Journal News, Daily Voice, Examiner
- Grown from Patch: A crop of new hyperlocal news sites has sprung up from AOL’s failed platform
- Did the city of New York just create a platform for hyperlocal news?
Is there potential for a new hyperlocal news site in Pleasantville? What types of stories would it cover? How would it be different from news outlets that already exist?
Post your response by Sunday, March 13 at 11:59 p.m.
Pace University Digital Newsroom 
I suppose there is potential for hyperlocal news in Pleasantville. At first I thought not because Pleasantville is such a small boring town, to me, but then I remembered that if you look hard enough you can find a story almost anywhere. If there was a hyperlocal news site for Pleasantville it would differ from other sites because it would strictly focus in on events and issues occurring in Pleasnatville and Pleasantville only. I guess this site could report on the business and the school and maybe even the people of Pleasantville. There’s that whole ” Humans of New York’ piece so you could do the “Humans of Plneasnaville ” and do feature stories on the people in the town. The site could also focus in on school funding and maybe childcare in the area. Plus like Owens said in her article ” if you’re going to go local, go really local”. So I really believe hyperlocal news in Pleasantville would not only work but be very beneficial.
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I believe there is potential for a new hyperlocal news site in Pleasantville. It should probably cover more entertainment and information on what to do around the town. The news outlets given provide ample information regarding the town of Pleasantville however, they seem to focus more on local business, crime, sports, and career services. This is all very useful information but what about the arts in the town? Like the Jacob Burns Center for example. There may be other forms of entertainment the town may have to offer, that people may not be aware of. A hyperlocal site for Pleasantville which is more entertainment driven could be a very useful source for people. This would be different from the other news outlets which already exists because it will narrow down the entertainment options available in Pleasantville. Wide variations of entertainment sources are not something Examiner, Daily Voice, and Journal News would exclusively offer.
In addition, I was personally a “fan” of Patch before its obvious downfall. I feel as if Patch was more similar to an entertainment news outlet. I remember when I was in high school, Patch was my go to source for news regarding Tarrytown. Their articles always seemed so much more appealing to me than any other news article site. The happenings they covered for Tarrytown were very appealing to me in my younger years. It would be interesting to take a concept similar to Patch’s, developed with a more precise approach. I think a new hyperlocal news site for Pleasnavtille with this approach in mind would be great.
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Pleasantville could have a hyper local news site. The local news would benefit in having a focus on ages between 13 and 17. So it would kind of be like a school newspaper, but will focus on both events and prepping for college. Another idea that might help for the site is comparing generations. So we could ask older people about what they use to at their age and compare it to the generation now. That would be interesting and give a nostalgic feeling to the community as well as find out some history on Pleasantville itself. I feel like it would be different from other news sites because they don’t really focus on the generation itself. Everything is black and white so this will allow something more interesting and reader friendly for people to enjoy. On the other hand, I did have difficult understand the content of Patch work. It was my first time hearing of it and hopefully it will be explained more in class.
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I was always so confused when I saw Patch on people’s LinkedIn accounts – I had no idea what it was. I feel like localized news is something I take for granted. I feel like content is so specialized or particular because there are so many options in terms of where to go for news. I understand the concept of honing in on your niche audience but I don’t really agree with ignoring national news completely as was mentioned in the Nieman Lab article. That seems a bit extreme to me. It makes more sense to connect national news to local news – how does x,y, relate to our community etc. I don’t know if Pleasantville is in need of it’s own news source. I feel like there is only so much that goes on in the area, a lot of the stories would either be re-caps of events or more informational posts about what’s going on in town for the next few weeks.
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I believe that there is room for a new hyperlocal news site in Pleasantville. I think in order for it to succeed it would need to take on an angel or voice that is underplayed. This way it would be different and stand out. For example, what were doing in class with our blogs. Our blogs are news but their more lenient, they don’t overwhelm readers (compared to news now that may keep readers away based on they’re demanding presence). Also, they take on different p.o.v’s. We each have a topic but we have to approach the topic in a different way by thinking outside of the box. This keeps readers interested. I think elements like these would give a new hyperlocal site potential to get a larger/different audience as well as a younger one. If it covered topics that wouldn’t normally get a lot of attention (charity, awareness for teenagers regarding sex myths, school saftey etc) it would receive a large amount of traffic. It could keep the pulse of news going. It would be fresh and entertaining yet meaningful.
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I believe there is room for a hyperlocal/microlocal news site in Pleasantville. However, I don’t think it should take place as a “traditional” form. I believe that the topic it should cover should be revolving a certain age group, maybe 16-18. An interesting form of a focus would be events going on between that age group, maybe high school games around the area, or what they do and events . It would fall along the lines of a “teen beat” or “high school beat” (multiple high schools in the area connected). It could use local teens to get their information by interviewing them. The site could have some printed paper display on high schools in the area and they could also use social media to connect to their target audience. The hyperlocal site could also be made into a program for teens around the area that would be interested in journalism, photography and/or writing. With them being first to hear about the information rather that adults trying to focus in and understand their audience target they could employ or perhaps provide internships for hopeful teens. They’re knowledge of all going around them would help provide for a successful hyperlocal paper.
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“Cracking local news at the micro scale has been a challenge for many companies in recent years,” said Justin Ellis. I agree and think that this very true. Especially reading on how the news outlet Patch.com has had many troubles and is considered a failure. I think it is ironic how one article is based on patch.com and the workers who have grown from the site and how the other only mentions the site and how it has failed. As Dylan Smith mentioned, “local news does indeed work, when it is done well by local reporters working for local news organizations.” I feel that a hyper-local news site would work in Pleasantville. The site would have to focus strictly on news that is local to that town. ‘If you’re going to go local, make sure that you’re really local’. The site should cover things such as local events, government issues politics (such as polling areas), crime, transportation services, education, health, public services such as sanitation schedules etc, sports and more. For instance Lohud covers the many towns within the lower Hudson valley. They have articles on events or individuals who reside within Pleasantville, but can get lost or out shined by news from other towns. For instance there is an article on Lohud on Jessica Tom, who is a native of Pleasantville and a novelist. She is being considered by DreamWorks to turn her novel, “Food Whore: A Novel of Dining Deceit” into a film. This is a wonderful story than many should read. I only found this article because I had to type in Pleasantville within the search bar. With a hyper-local news site strictly based on Pleasantville, this article would be on the front page. If you want to read more on Jessica Tom, here is the link! ( http://www.lohud.com/story/life/2016/03/08/debut-novel-pleasantville-native-optioned-hollywood-movie/80808624/ )
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