The local news conundrum

FIRST, an excellent new Pew Research Center survey about how Americans consume local news and what they want from their news sources.

This is one of the key findings: "Even amid declining revenues and staffing, about seven-in-ten Americans think their local news outlets are doing very or somewhat well financially (71%). When it comes to their own financial support of the industry, just 14% of American adults say they have paid for local news in the past year, either through subscription, donation or membership."

So: Most people don't know about the sorry state of local news biz models, and most people say they are not subscribing. One caveat: Most Americans DO pay for local TV news, without realizing it, by paying for cable.

Sara Fischer's scoop about a new venture by Google. Several of the tech giants are trying to get on the right side of news history... battling the widespread belief that their products have seriously hurt the news biz... by bankrolling all sorts of new services and initiatives. This "Local Experiments Project" by the Google News Initiative is a big move.

Google is stepping up to fund "dozens of new local news websites around the country and eventually around the world," Fischer wrote.Richard Gingras told her that Google "will be spending many millions of dollars on this overall."

Is this what the future looks like in smaller media markets?

 

About the Google experiment...

McClatchy is Google's first partner. The company's CEO Craig Forman said the "experiment" will provide news coverage "to three small to mid-sized U.S. communities that don't have access to significant local sources of news and information."

It's a three-year bet... "Our objective at McClatchy is to explore new models for independent local news and information," Forman said in this blog post. "Google's objective is to test the business models and operational aspects necessary to succeed in local news."

 --> Columbia J-school prof Bill Grueskin tweeted: "Google is *directly funding* new local-news sites, using a newspaper chain (McClatchy) as its publishing partner and promising total editorial independence. A very different model from what we've seen in the past..."

 --> His colleague Emily Bell tweeted: "This where we have been heading for a while. Would US news organizations be comfortable with the govt directly owning local news? If the answer is ‘no' then this should concern them too..."
 

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Source CNN.com