Sourcing Innovation from a ‘Rural Journalism Lab’

[Commentary] Building on our previous research through the Tow Center and a workshop we held in August 2017 on strengthening storytelling networks and civic engagement in this region of Kentucky, over the past few months we embarked on a series of experiments with the Bratcher brothers in what we’ve coined a “rural journalism innovation lab.”  Our work explored a range of approaches—around promotion, news products, and community engagement—aimed at driving residents into a deeper relationship with The Ohio County Monitor and supporting the outlet’s move to a $5-monthly subscription model, supported by very limited advertising.

What we found is that while Facebook drives the most traffic to the site, its algorithm over-prioritizes local crime stories from The Monitor, pushing stories into local residents’ feed that don’t drive the kind of readership likely to translate to subscriptions. A number of Facebook ad spends to promote Monitor-sponsored events and gift subscriptions also weren’t useful in getting people to show up or subscribe. Thus far, livestreaming community events has proved unreliable, due to unpredictable internet connectivity at venues in the rural county, and a weekly podcast was hard to promote and challenging for readers to discover and follow.

[Sam Ford is a media/journalism strategy consultant, research affiliate with MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing, and adjunct faculty member in the Western Kentucky University Department of Communication. Andrea Wenzel is an assistant professor at Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication. ]