PRESS RELEASE

 Online and in Print – the Future of Community News?

One of the major challenges facing community newspapers and website developers is to coordinate and maintain local news content on the existing local council and community websites.

The Mornington Peninsula News has been nominated as one of 12 licensed pilot sites to test the new platform in January 2008. As a locally owned and operated charter member, Village Media will use this shared technology, infrastructure and best practices with Mornington Peninsula News thus ensuring sustainability, on-going maintenance and development.

This year, US based VillageSoup.com received a private grant of US$885,000 (approx. AU$1 million) for "improving journalism worldwide" - the third largest of 25 grants from a field of 1,600.

The Grant will provide a streamlined and easily scaled open source publishing system to encourage the spread of the VillageSoup Concept to small communities throughout Australia, starting with the Mornington Peninsula.

More and more, news operators are tending to treat newspapers and the Web as two halves of a complementary whole. “We’re trying to use both [print and the Web] for what they’re good at,” said Alan Perkins, website developer and owner of VillageSoup.com.au. “Rather than create a website from a newspaper, we’re creating newspapers from websites.”

With unlimited space, VillageSoup welcomes contributions from feet-on-the-ground community journalists providing professional content, with two-thirds of contributions coming from community members, businesses, sporting clubs, community centres and other non-profit organisations. News is pumped online instantly, with the immediacy of television or radio, and summarised for publication in print.

Using both mediums helps provide expanded coverage, community interaction and breaking news, whilst the online site also generates copy for the local newspaper. Online contributions can be a boon to press news editors, who can use citizens’ remarks as quotes in their stories.

The online Community News concept relies on the community for ideas and content, accepting news from residents, press releases from businesses, poems and essays from students, school lunch menus, animal shelter notices and the local cricket scores.

“Sure, you can get the Channel 7 News, but locals can see what’s happened round the corner, where the local accident was, who got married, who died, who’s hiring, and what the latest Committee News is,” Alan said. “It’s like Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, London where community members can express their ideas in a public forum.” he said.

“Online Community News gives voice to many community members whose comments were formerly limited to over-the-fence gossip,” said Alan, “The result is a community that knows itself much better than before. It’s a kind of participatory democracy.”

The Village Media Community Hosting Service involves the reader in every aspect of the process, - a cross between traditional media and YouTube!  

“Specialised community-oriented portals (social networks) stress participation, connecting people, and keeping people informed on the latest happenings in their communities. We're prioritizing those functions in our system," Alan says.

With 2/3 of its front page content coming from amateurs, it has the potential to grow business loyalty significantly faster than traditional news sources. Online activity is known to increase significantly with intense municipal debate, local tragedies, major accidents or storms, etc. Perhaps this truly is the future of community news?

For further details, visit www.villagesoup.com.au                   

 Contact: Alan Perkins

Tel: (03) 5984 2179  Mob: 0408 10251