Patrick Kitano and I are both interested in local journalism and business models for local, though we come at the conversation from different perspectives.
Patrick’s background is in digital and business – he created Breaking News Network to curate local content in a variety of locales. His sites also rely on Twitter feeds from community members. The network doesn’t aim for local ads for support; instead he’s looking at national advertisers looking to target specific locations.
This will be the first “journalism” conference Patrick has attended, and he’s looking forward to discussing his site and his business model with journalists. He also writes The Local Network column for Streetfightmag.com.
I’m looking forward to hearing what Patrick and others have to say about the business model and how we can sustainably fund original, local journalism. As a journalism instructor at University of Colorado Boulder, I teach a course in entrepreneurial media each fall, so this is a focus for my students too. One question I have for Patrick – and others – is how curation/aggregation models work without content from local journalists.