Four month folly | From the Publisher’s Laptop

Today marks the fourth month since Ozarks Unbound went live and I’m pretty happy with the result.

It’s probably an apt moment for reflection – what the self-helpers call “taking stock”.

Here it goes.

First, I’ve learned much more than I ever expected about coding and web design when I started this project. This is a good thing. I have a rather Do-It-Yourself personality when it comes to things I care about, so it’s best that I learn the technical stuff for myself rather than farm it out to someone else. This is especially true because I could only pay them in magic beans. Just ask any of OU’s contributors.

Second, I’d hoped at this point to have a larger archive of journalism-style stories on the site. It’s coming along, and I’m pleased with what’s here, but I look forward to finding more time to research and write actual news stories. I find it very satisfying to report and publish the kind of stories that go untold and under-reported. It’s the reason Ozarks Unbound was formed, and I hope to live up to that mission as soon as I can.

As I was doing this reflecting, I decided to take a look at the Google Analytics since our launch on June 17. Since that time we’ve had almost 5,000 unique vistors to the site, 10,500 visits and 27,000 page views. In the Internet world, these numbers are small, but for us they are perfect.

We’ve always wanted to be a local news source and that’s what the numbers reflect since 70 percent of those hits are in Arkansas and 60 percent of them come from Northwest Arkansas alone. It’s our goal to reach a local audience and grow our readership and trust among you over time.

There was a story in the most recent issue of Newsweek about hyperlocal news sites. I read it with deep interest. Hyperlocalism is a growing trend and I only expect it to get bigger in the coming years. I really hope to participate in this transformation of how news is delivered locally.

Some big players like AOL and The New York Times are trying to franchise the hyperlocalism idea in small communities, and true local and grassroots news sites like The Fayetteville Flyer, North Little Rock’s Argenta News and Fort Smith’s The City Wire and our own Ozarks Unbound are figuring out new business models.

There are other national sites I look at to see what they do. I’ve made contact with a few of the other indie publishers. We’re all just trying to experiment and figure out what works best in this online form.

A new experiment I began a few days ago is Snapshot. It’s an attempt to give readers a look at crime in the area on a specific day, like your traditional police beat from the newspaper (something I did for years in Little Rock at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette) but with all the groovy bells and whistles allowed online. My hope is that it’s something the community will find of value.

As long as enough people view it everyday, I’ll continue to put it out there.

For me, as long as something passes the ethics test and people are interested in it, I’m willing to give it a try here on Ozarks Unbound. Our main thrust and my professional interest is in the arts and politics, but I’m open to any other type of news if people show an interest.

I think that’s the new role media should play. You have to, and should, interact with your audience. For a decade, I absorbed the traditional newsroom attitude that journalists  must provide the news people need, not what they want, and remain aloof. That workplace culture gets ingrained even when you don’t believe it because it’s often reinforced by editors from a different era who do.

I sat down with a friend over lunch a few months ago after I was laid off and he confessed to me that he never reads the fire stories or crime stories that newspapers cover with unbridled zeal.

“Listen, this may sound harsh, but if it’s not my house or my friend or my family, I don’t really care,” he told me.

I was stunned, but at the same time I realized maybe this is why readership is declining for print news. Because newspapers, much like the medium they are printed on, are locked in a model that no longer speaks to readers. Sure, he wants to know where the fire was, but not read an entire story’s worth of detail about a house fire.

I told myself I’d try to be better and listen to Ozarks Unbound’s audience and respond when people weren’t interested in a feature. And I keep telling myself that …

Many thanks to Fayetteville artist Megan Chapman for an amazing Songbook this week. Some of the tunes I knew and enjoyed remembering. Others, I heard for the first time. Also, Fayetteville musician Wade Ogle was nice enough to provide this week’s Songbook entries on amazingly short notice. Thanks, Wade, I know we will all enjoy your selections.

I wrote a review of Momma Deans Soul Food Kitchen after a tasty Sunday meal. Also, I went to see Zombieland on Friday and published my opinion of the movie.

The missive got a bit long this week. It will be shorter next week. Let that be a warning about what self-reflecting does to you.

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