The opportunity, and pain, of local online news

I've always been convinced that local news is where the action (and money) is for online journalism. Low start-up costs, an attentive (but small) audience and relatively low overhead.

The Washington Post reports on the challenges facing Backfence. It's not the only such venture facing such hurdles. American Town Networks, based in Connecticut, had similar troubles.

My sense is that if you try to create a local site and only rely on local residents to post information you're making a mistake. You still need someone to "seed" the site -- someone called an editor or reporter. Sort of the old fashioned way of doing things. There's no reason you won't get a lot of residents contributing but you still need the strong foundation of someone making sure the critical news and events are posted.