In Push for Local Readers, Post Unleashes LoudounExtra.com
The Washington Post Co. today is launching LoudounExtra.com, an aggressive online push into hyperlocal journalism, combining traditional reporters and photographers with bloggers, videographers and extensive databases on schools, businesses and churches.
Context & Ripple Effects
LoudounExtra.com is the sharpest move yet in The Washington Post Co.'s web-push: back in January 2007 the company was already working on closer Web and print integration, and today it extends that strategy from shared workflows into a standalone community product for one fast-growing Virginia county.
The launch is significant enough that the New York Times is covering it the same day (its own writeup frames it as a bet on trading hyperlocal news online) — a sign that how one of America's largest metro dailies structures local coverage is being watched as a template, not just a local story.
First-order effects
- Loudoun County readers gain a dedicated site combining staff reporting with blogger, video, and database content on schools, businesses and churches — coverage the main Washington Post site did not provide at that granularity.
- The Post's reporters, photographers and new hires assigned to Loudoun now compete directly with county weeklies and community sites for both audience and local advertising dollars.
Second-order effects
- Other metro dailies watching the launch face pressure to answer with their own hyperlocal spinoffs or cede fast-growing suburban counties' ad revenue to whoever gets there first.
- Local institutions — schools, businesses, churches — become structured data as well as stories, putting the Post in potential competition with directories and classifieds for the information residents search for.
Third-order effects
- If the model holds, metro papers shift from a single regional brand toward networks of community sites, changing newsroom staffing toward videographers, bloggers and database work alongside traditional beats.
- Whether staffed hyperlocal sites can outcompete cheap volunteer blogs and aggregators remains the open question the industry will judge this experiment by — success would set the template, failure a cautionary case for the whole newspaper sector.
The trend: Metro dailies are building standalone hyperlocal networks to defend local audiences and advertising from community sites and weeklies, with The Washington Post's Loudoun experiment as a leading test.