Champlain College Publishing Initiative ran an interesting piece about local online news recently. Writer Melinda Grey ends with…
As a foretaste of things to come, check out this remarkable link. It’s an item that was recently posted on our Front Porch Forum (speaking of hyperlocal) after yet another day of heavy rain and flooding in Burlington.
Is this the future of local news? And does this suggest that Front Porch Forum may be one model for the hyperlocal news medium of the future?
Her colleague Tim Brookes added…
… events have shown how prophetic Melinda’s observations were. One of the photos of the Booth Street flood we recommended (originally posted as a link on Front Porch Forum) showed up on the front cover of this week’s Seven Days.
This raises some fascinating questions. If a newsweekly picks up a photo from Front Porch Forum, doesn’t that identify the original item as being news, and thus, by implication, identify Front Porch Forum as a hyperlocal online news entity, at least in part? Does this imply that the world is full of sources of what might be called “raw” news, in the sense that reality TV uses security camera feeds as raw footage? It also suggests that this kind of reader-driven content is the print medium’s equivalent of “open source” material–but only up to a point…
Indeed, this kind of thing happens with Front Porch Forum nearly every week. A local citizen posts something on FPF to share with nearby neighbors and then one or more traditional media outlets pick it up and builds a story. We appreciate when the news outlets give proper attribution so their audience knows where they got the lead… but that occurs less than half the time.
As a 2010 Knight News Challenge award winner, FPF is increasingly seen as a new part of the local news and community conversation ecosystem… a quickly evolving environment.
Traditional media frequently uses Front Porch Forum for story leads. Today it’s the Burlington Free Press covering coyotes in suburban South Burlington…
In the wake of a rabid coyote attack last year on several people in Westchester County, N.Y., coyote-spotters have maintained a lively dialogue on the Butler Farms Front Porch Forum.
Chuck LaBombard, who has lived in the Oak Creek development for 11 years, is one of them.
“The coyote population has continued to increase during the past decade and I get it. We live in their territory,” he wrote in a January post.
“To occasionally see them on the golf course or in back of the development is one thing. To routinely see them on our sidewalks is totally another,” he continued. “Imagine if a child s pooked them or a lone adult was in the wrong place at the wrong time. My 11-year-old daughter is becoming afraid to play in her own yard… front or back! I am not a house-on-fire kind of person, but I am concerned!”
LaBombard and other neighbors have found no easy fix, and Police Chief Trevor Whipple has cautioned them against frontier justice in a crowded neighborhood: Firearms discharge is illegal within city limits…
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more