The Internet golden age of local policy debate
Sure, the digital age might be killing professional muckraking in local markets, and most of the spadework that becomes local news stories might still come from newspapers. But a new empirical study suggests that all the new online din isn’t crowding out serious policy debate.
Just the opposite: Startup news sites are drawing far more attention to actual local policy than newspapers, TV, or radio.
That’s my take on this study, first presented in December, of where discussions about Portland’s city government are happening online. As reported by the Portland Mercury, social media consultant Jamie Beckland dug through six months of articles and comments from a variety of local sites for uses of the words “bureau,” “city,” “government,” “agency,” or “department” in conjunction with “Portland.”
He found that topical local blogs ran rings around traditional media when it came to such references. The site that racked up the most posts and comments about those dry topics was bikeportland.org, a professionally reported blog for the city’s intense bicycle scene. Number two: mentalhealthportland.org, a daily filter of articles about people with mental illness and their run-ins with the law. Also in the top six: hipster hangout Blogtown PDX, hyperlocal aggregator neighborhoodnotes.com and libertarian opinionator bojack.org. (Full disclosure: I’m friendly with many of these sites’ creators.) And finally, down at #9: The Oregonian. Keep reading »
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