SDNN Gets Hyper-Local

I have followed the rise of SDNN since their numerous “BETA” releases back in March.  I cheered their commitment to “hyper-local” coverage.  I cringed and turned away when a torrent of courtesy photos, some straight from Flickr, told me that they were not interested in funding quality professional photojournalism.  In the earlier days, with their front page often dominated by national stories from the Associated Press, I strongly questioned whether they really had a commitment to substantive local coverage, but despite some drawbacks I think the future could hold good things for the fledgling network.

Granted, SDNN has worked out some of the kinks.  They recently surpassed local investigative journalism site Voiceofsandiego.org – a site completely dedicated to local issues – in monthly visitors.  My initial reaction was to guess that reaching this milestone has less to do with being dominant on the hyper-local front, as their announcement claims, and more to do with the fact that SDNN runs AP stories and Voice of San Diego doesn’t.  But, I am pleased today to see an SDNN homepage devoid of nationally syndicated stories, and dominated by original SDNN content.  It seems AP stories are on the backburner at SDNN; you have to go to the AP section just to see the headlines.  So my question for SDNN now is whether running AP stories has actually given them a boost, or if it has been worth it to pay for expensive syndicated stories that can be found on a hundred other newspaper websites just as easily.  Personally, I’d prefer it if SDNN ditched their AP subscription and used to money to pay for investigative reporting akin to Voice of San Diego.

Though I am optimistic, a disappointing update to the hyper-local content saga is this recent outreach effort by SDNN soliciting content from San Diego citizens.  Posed as a contest, it tries to play off an abysmal fee – $25 a story – as some sort of fun prize for giving SDNN your work.  That’s IF they decide your story is one of the best five they receive in a given week.  And just look at the terms of service: when someone submits their work to SDNN they are supposed to choose one of three license agreements.  It’s not clear which one is required to actually be paid for a story, but can you imagine submitting a story for free under an exclusive license in any circumstance?  That would mean that without any compensation, SDNN could have the right not only to publish your work, but transfer or sell that work to someone else.

I think this is a terrible way to solicit the community for stories.  Usually the ‘prize’ for a contest is a considerable chunk of change, not a meager four cents a word.  The five best weekly stories from all of San Diego are worth $25 each?  How am I supposed to interpret that?  Why don’t I just head to best of Craigslist to see what’s up?

This is the same devaluation of content I see in SDNN’s use of courtesy photos over hired photographers.  A growing trend among smaller community newspapers and publications (which as a freelance photographer has made me bitter if you haven’t noticed already) is to use mediocre photos for free rather than pay for quality images.  I hope that with this call for submissions, SDNN isn’t expanding this to include mediocre writing as well.  What a horrible precedent to set as a young publication that has just overcome the in-depth reporting of voiceofsandiego.org in terms of web visitors:  that the winning model is broad, shallow coverage and not in-depth, significant investigative reportage.

Anyway, I hate ending things on a down note, especially since its the summer and business is picking up for yours truly.  I spent most of this post complaining about SDNN trying to attract cheap, mediocre content, but at least their site is getting to be distinctly original and not just another newspaper site.  I even see hints of the Daily Beast‘s style of adept aggregation.  I’m optimistic that SDNN will continue to get their shit together.