Dan Gillmor points to an early adopter of citizen journalism; the Buffton Today site and newspaper in South Carolina. I don’t know how big Buffton is, but I live in a town that has just over 11,000 people and we still have a local paper, The Chesterton Tribune, that hits my mailbox every afternoon, Monday through Friday. It is the most read newspaper in our house, competing against the Chicago Tribune and the Times.
I don’t visit their website because it offers me very little beyond what is in their print edition, but if they launched what Steve Yelvington describes below, I would subscribe to the RSS feeds in a minute. Police blotter coverage, local sports and events are their bread and butter. I would love to be able to share and post photos from my son’s cross-country meets, add events to the calendar, list stuff I want to sell and maybe even write opinion pieces on what I call “the myth of small town America”. I won’t make many friends with that angle, but it would probably make for some lively discussions.
From Dan’s post:
It’s the Buffton Today site and newspaper, in South Carolina — user generated material from the get-go, including free classifieds. It comes from an established media company, and the site looks terrific.
“We flip the newspaper site model upside down,” says Steve Yelvington on his blog. He notes:
– Everyone gets a blog. Not just staffers, but everyone in the community. LeMonde (France) and the Mail and Guardian (South Africa) are doing this, too. I don’t know of others but would appreciate pointers.
– Everyone gets a photo gallery.
– Everyone can contribute events to a shared public community calendar.
– Everyone can contribute recipes to a community cookbook.
This is big news, folks.
For more read Steve Yelvington’s post and take a look at the site.