Local + Local + Local = National

A new idea for an online distribution model could offer a way for local newspapers to gain national attention.

That’s the view of blogger and new media publisher Scott Karp, who believes his model would provide local websites with both national distribution and “content targeted distribution”.

Karp’s theory centres around the notion that journalists should take a hint from bloggers and engage in linking activity when and where possible.

If local blogging reporters set up a network where they all link to each other, this could be used as a way of passing on news from one local source to another and another and so on, says Karp.

He provides an illustration of this in practice: A local journalist has done a story on a universal issue such as water quality and then links this to other online reports produced by local writers across the country.

Thus producing “a great link journalism piece to complement original reporting on how the issue presents in your locality”.

He adds: “The result would be that your link journalism drives traffic to other local sites - put another way, your journalism would be contributing to the national distribution of the reporting by those other local journalists, on the issue of water quality.”

Karp goes further: “Now imagine if 1,000 newspapers where actively link blogging about issues of local importance - and linking to each other’s reporting on the same issues as part of their link journalism effort.”

He concludes that not only is this country-wide distribution since “distributing content across hundreds of localities adds up to national distribution”, but it is also content targeted since “you’re directing people interested in a topic to other content on that topic”.

“Reinventing Local News Distribution on the Web” is available to view on Karp’s blog, Publishing 2.0.