Exploring a Networked Journalism

Between late June and late October 2009, J-Lab conducted more than 60 interviews of Philadelphia residents, performed content analyses of the city's two daily newspapers and four commercial television stations, and undertook a scan of the city's 260 blogs, and hyperlocal or niche websites. We have found about 60 blogs and websites that have some journalistic DNA. More have launched since the summer. On January 7, 2010, we invited more than 50 representatives of the city's legacy and new-media outlets and foundations to hear a report on initial findings and recommendations. Input from that meeting is included in this report.

Key findings:

• The available news about Philadelphia public affairs issues has dramatically diminished over the last three years by many measures: news hole, air time, story count, key word measurements.
• People in Philadelphia want more public affairs news than they are now able to get.
• They don't think their daily newspapers are as good as the newspapers used to be.
• They want news that is more connected to their city.
• People from both the Old Philadelphia, anchored by the city's union and blue-collar workers, and the New Philadelphia, representing tech-savvy, up-and-coming neighborhoods, want to be involved in helping to generate that news.
• The city is awash in media and technological assets that can pioneer a new Golden Era of Journalism.
• There is strong, but guarded, interest in exploring a collaborative journalism venture.
• A significant number of Philadelphia's new media outlets have expressed interest in pursuing a collaborative media initiative.
• Any collaborative news effort must validate and support the fiercely independent mindsets of the city's new media makers.