State of Local

This recent Newsweek article has sparked a lot of comment in online news circles. The premise (which is drawn primarily from Andrew Keen’s book “The Cult Of The Amateur” ) is that audiences are moving away from user-generated content and back towards content written and edited by professionals. It’s an idea that is appealing to many local news companies, which are struggling to find the best ways to integrate UGC into their web sites. In fact, the article was brought up in a phone call I had with one local news executive earlier this week. Aren’t people tired of all that “amateur” stuff?

No, no, no. The thrust of the Newsweek article is that readers find professionally edited sites such as Maholo or Google’s new beta site Knol much more useful than they would Wikipedia or even perhaps YouTube. And not surprisingly, executives with those companies tend to agree with the premise.

The problem with the article (and the discussion) is two-fold. The piece doesn’t give any indication that it’s a trend that is applicable to online news operations. In fact, there are a number of studies that trend the opposite way. Readers are indeed looking for a trusted local news source. But they see UGC content as part of that mix.
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