Having a non-journalism internship was a new experience for me. I realize it might seem strange that a student so dedicated to journalism would take a government relations internship, but these past few months, I’ve been watching all my friends graduate … and not find jobs.

There are a select few who found internships or jobs at small newspapers, but many of them have gone to law school, grad school, PR firms or back home to their parents because they can’t find anything. When I got rejected from 24 internships, I realized I needed to explore the other options that are available to someone with a journalism degree.

It was definitely not as bad as I was afraid it would be. The press shop I worked in consisted of four full-time staffers, and to my surprise, they all loved journalism. They pored over newspapers every morning, joked with reporters on the phone and lamented the state of the journalism industry. They didn’t try to avoid questions and they weren’t slimy people. Yeah, they were obviously trying to promote the senator, but they weren’t evil.

I learned a lot of valuable lessons about government relations, mainly to be straightforward with reporters and to “make news, don’t fake news.” They were comforting lessons that made me realize that there are PR professionals who love and respect journalism as much as those working in the industry.

It reminded me of something my old professor Richard Benedetto once said about being a political reporter, “To be a political reporter, you must love politicians.” Well, from what I could tell, to work in government relations, it seems you must love political reporters.

So where do I go from here? Well, this semester I have internship with the city of Gainesville’s press office, overseeing their social networking and Web presence and doing a little bit of video work. These two internships haven’t deterred me in the slightest from pursuing my dream to be a reporter, but if for some reason I couldn’t reach that goal, I know I’ll be OK.

And as for where I’m headed after graduation, I’ve enthusiastically accepted a six- to nine-month internship with the Las Vegas Sun. I’m considering this my big break and at this point, I’m pretty much counting down the days until I can head West. Great things lie ahead, and I can’t wait to live it up.

Then I remembered some of my earliest posts. I made those mistakes at one point, too. And that’s when I realized how truly far I’ve come as a blogger.

It was only a year and half ago I began this blog. It seems so much longer, which I can only attribute to having learned so much during that time.

What I’ve learned has obviously worked for me since I now have a decent following and am getting paid to manage another blog. If I were closer to this acquaintance, I would share some tips. Because I’m not, I’ll just post them here for any beginners facing the same problems:

1. Keep it short. Don’t draw things out or people get bored and leave.
2. Don’t be so formal! Having people visit your blog is like having friends over for dinner. You want to have fun and intellectual conversation, but if you sound like Frasier, people might be less inclined to come back.
3. Leave your posts open ended. If you cover every angle of a story, you leave no room for discussion.
4. Learn how to read your analytics. Analytics are super cool, and it’s easy/fun to get hooked. What posts are getting the most hits? What search terms are they using to find your site? Where are they from? All these answers will give you a better understanding of what kind of topics you should cover and who your audience is.
5. Have a good “About” page that tells people who you are and why you have a blog.
6. Don’t be too incendiary (unless you’re into that kind of thing). It seems to lead to arguments instead of constructive discussion.

And that’s pretty much it for beginners. If you follow those tips, I’m pretty sure I set you ahead by a few months.

I know my editorship at the Alligator was not perfect, but in the end, I accomplished what I set out to do. The Alligator is switching its content management system from TownNews to WordPress, and the editorial department’s needs are finally being recognized by the management and board of directors.

I made some very difficult decisions during my term, but the toughest was by far the decision to publicize the Alligator’s dilemma of not having an editor-in-chief applicant because of internal problems. (Editor’s note: The story did not come out as planned, but in the end, I guess it got the job done.)

Despite receiving a lot of flack, I still stand by that decision, and I am proud of it. It was because of that story that so many alumni got involved (including, but not limited to, financial donations). And the staff this semester started off with up-to-date software, some decent equipment and a positive outlook.

In the end, I’m happy with how last semester went.

This semester, I’ve taken a job at the UF Web Administration, where I’ll be helping improve its blog and doing some (X)HTML, CSS, etc. I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s very laid back and will definitely fine-tune my Web skills.

I’m also working as the Alligator’s ombudsman, a position I plan to use to assist in recruitment and image. I would really like to create a conversation with the Alligator’s audience and implement some of the ideas I mentioned in my State of the Newsroom Report from December. I would like to start an ombudsman blog to make the newsroom more transparent and approachable. I’ll let you know when this happens.

Finally, some of my random goals for this semester include brushing up on my American Sign Language, blogging much more frequently, practicing my crappy photography, and learning Flash and video shooting/editing. Oh, and studying for the GRE (groan). Looks like I’ll be pretty busy! Better get to work.

As the outgoing editor, I summed up the problems/answers I could see in a state of the newsroom report, which I’m sharing here:

1. Turnover – our biggest problem
   1. It has become very easy to ascend the ranks of the Alligator. What were prestigious leadership positions have become burdens and responsibilities for lower-level staff to be take on (or be pressured into) each semester. Instead of spending three to four years at the Alligator, staffers are able to reach the top positions in fewer than two.
   2. Factors contributing to high turnover are:
      1. Trimester system – This forces the staff to take over positions before they are necessarily ready or willing. Staffers aren’t given enough time to reach full potential; by the time they master their beat, they have to take over as a section editor because there is no one else.
      2. Small staff – It has become increasingly difficult to recruit and maintain staff members. This has become a vicious cycle where fewer people take on more responsibility, become burned out and leave, forcing others to take on more work.
      3. State of the industry – The outlook is not good right now for newspapers, which is scaring people from the profession, the major and especially the paper, where their grades (which will now be used to break into other jobs) tend to suffer from the workload.
2. Solution to turnover
   1. Get rid of the trimester system – Internships are usually only 10-12 weeks long. It’s usually relatively easy to finagle the time you spend to fit with this schedule. If not, one of the managing editors could step up to take over for summer. Because the Alligator only prints twice a week during the summer, having one managing editor and an editor-in-chief is do-able, even if it’s not ideal.
   2. Increased recruitment efforts, see next section.
   3. Offer internship/independent study credit to top three editors – By offering credit hours, editors have more time to balance school and work. This would also encourage lower-level staffers to compete for these positions because they would feel like they could manage the workload and their schoolwork.
   4. More involvement with alumni (ideas courtesy of Rick Hirsch of The Miami Herald, Ron Sachs of Ron Sachs Communications and posts on the message board from the “I’m an Alligator Alum” Facebook group).
      
      1. Alumni could visit the Alligator on a twice monthly basis to talk about the journalism industry and how to succeed. This would show the staff what kind of journalists come out of the newsroom and give staffers a place to start when it comes to networking. Meeting successful journalism types would be reason enough for some to stay at the Alligator.
      2. Alumni could be matched with staffers in a mentoring system. It would not require much work outside keeping in touch by exchanging e-mails or phone calls. It would give alumni the opportunity to see how the current each staffer is doing, provide feedback and give individual advice from an industry professional.
3. Recruitment and Image
   1. Not as many people want to work at the Alligator anymore. With The Gainesville Sun publishing unedited student stories (according to one faculty member) students have less of a reason to submit work to the Alligator, so they’re not exposed to the electricity of the newsroom.
   2. Everyone has a certain perception of the Alligator. Here are a few:
      1. Journalism students who don’t work here see us as elitist and snobby. This might not be the case, but our behavior can be perceived this way when we ask professors for leniency on assignments or attendance because we had a story to write, or when we fall asleep in class because we were working all night. This goes hand-in-hand with recruitment because this behavior makes us seem as if we think we’re better than other students—even when we don’t think this—which makes them not want to be part of our “clique.”
      2. Greeks always see us as hating Greeks and multicultural groups always see us as a white newspaper. Although we’ve tried to reach out to these groups by allowing members of each community to blog their news, it hasn’t been as successful as we hoped.
4. Solution: Bring back the ombudsman
   1. The position of ombudsman should be to work on recruitment and the Alligator’s public image. By making this a job at the Alligator, this takes the responsibility of recruitment and image off the shoulders of the editor and managing editors, leaving them a little more time to channel their efforts toward more pressing issues.
      1. Recruitment – the ombudsman can work with the promotions department of the Alligator to promote itself and its reputation. This could be efforts as simple as sitting behind tables on Turlington Plaza, the Reitz Union Colonnade and in the J-school, answering questions about who we are and what we do. We could even take it one step further and hold forums on campus to get reader and contributor feedback.
      2. Image
         1. Weekly or biweekly column – The ombudsman should write a column that would explain how the newspaper works and address reader feedback. This would allow for transparency of the newsroom and dispel the idea that the Alligator has some kind of hidden agenda.
         2. Involve multicultural groups – Because this is the ombudsman’s job, they would have time to reach out to multicultural groups on campus—such as the National Association of Black Journalists, the Asian American Journalists Association, etc.—and let them know that the Alligator wants their involvement at the paper. This would also promote recruitment from these groups and diversify the newsroom.
         3. Get that ad fixed – The ombudsman could get some quotes from more diverse alumni to change the promotional advertisement in the Alligator that only showcases quotes from old, white men. That information could be handed off to advertising so they could change the ad and thus, the image we portray.
5. Technology
   1. Our lack of technology (and this includes software and equipment) is hurting the quality of the Alligator and our reputation. We are no longer seen as the place for cutting-edge journalism; just a newspaper with a history. If we want to have a reputation as the best student-run newspaper, then we need to make a name for ourselves in online journalism.
6. Solution to technology – not as simple as buying some
   1. A technology budget – The editorial department needs a budget to take into account more than just payroll. No one knows what editorial needs better than those who work in editorial, and by giving the department a set budget, you allow it to decide how to spend the money. This would allow the department to take care of its most dire needs without subjecting it to the judgment of the business division.
   2. Alumni donations – Alumni love the Alligator more than any other group of people. If a monthly newsletter were sent out to include what the paper has accomplished (i.e. presidential election coverage) and list needs of the newsroom, I’m sure alumni would be more than willing to donate money or equipment with or without a tax deduction.
   3. Transparency – Revenue and expenditures should be made transparent to all departments of the Alligator, including editorial, to show what (if any) elbow room there is in the budget. By making this information open to ONLY the heads of each department, each department becomes more aware of what’s best for the Alligator: spending the money in its budget, or saving it to prepare for the future.
7. Power
   1. Editorial, which provides the content and thus the *product* of this *news* organization, is given little clout in how the Alligator is run. Even though it was not intended this way, Editorial has become subject to the business division for all of its needs. Although business has the best intentions and is usually accommodating, the department does not understand what it is the editorial staff does, how it works or what it needs.
8. Power solution
   1. Monthly board meetings – The board can and should be a body of people who can straddle the fence and find compromises between business and editorial. By establishing monthly board meetings, you give an opportunity for equality between the departments to evolve. At each meeting, department heads can give status reports to inform the board about how the Alligator is functioning as a whole. If there are issues or problems, the board can use this time to accommodate them and offer advice. And because the board only has one acting member from editorial, fairness is ensured through the other members.

I should probably note that the new editor-in-chief, Nicole Safker, and I spoke and decided to have me stay on staff as the Alligator’s ombudsman. I’m hoping this will take some of the burden off Nicole, allowing her to channel her efforts toward more pressing issues. It will also allow for some continuity between my efforts at recruitment and image from the fall to the spring.

As always, if you see problems or solutions that are missing, let me know. I’ll make sure to add them in and pass them along to Nicole.

Thanks again to everyone who has helped our staff through this difficult time.

Dear Alumni,

Thank you for all the e-mails and messages you’ve sent. However, I think our own story missed the staff’s point, which is our fault.

Let me say this once: This staff is not working here for the money. We didn’t start at this newspaper for the money, and we’re not going into journalism for the money. We’re not afraid of long hours and hard work.

What we’re afraid for is our futures.

Mary is absolutely correct. We are not getting the experience that we need for internships and jobs that are out there.

I can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard, “You worked at the Alligator? That’s great. What else have you done?”

The truth of the matter is that the Alligator is NOT getting us internships and jobs anymore.

Many members of the staff find their first internships through personal connections with the faculty. Others sign up for programs where you pay to take classes and intern in a big city (the programs guarantee you an internship).

The problem? We’re not a place for innovative journalism anymore. Today, journalism is not just copy and headlines. We’re being expected to (at the very least) know (X)HMTL, CSS, how to gather/edit audio (and sometimes video), build Soundslides and more.

We put out what little we can, but that’s just it; it’s not enough. We don’t have equipment or staff to do what’s necessary to uphold our reputation.

We’ve built bridges with the faculty to get them to encourage students to work here, and they’ve done that. Staffers visited every single reporting lab to recruit new writers. We’ve done everything we could think of to build up our staff, and it hasn’t worked well enough to build up a strong incoming class of staffers.

We had funding for a full staff this semester. As it stands now, we have three writers on the university desk and two on metro. That makes up our entire staff of writers. The rest are freelancers. We have five writers. Five.

Those five writers are covering ALL of our important news. They typically write three stories a day. How are they supposed to gather and edit the audio for those stories and build a Soundslides when they have to write those stories? They can’t learn those new, vital technology skills when they’re making up for a non-existent beat partner.

The skills students need to succeed in today’s journalism industry are not being taught in full at the Alligator. They’re finding opportunities to learn those skills elsewhere, especially in the college, which is constantly upgrading its technology and curriculum and emphasizing the importance of multimedia skills.

And so it becomes a vicious cycle. We can’t attract students because we don’t have the technology or manpower to spearhead the online movement, so the current staff suffers. They get burned out because they’re doing more than just working hard, they are doing the work of several reporters and editors.

Many of you cited that despite the workload, you had fun. I can say that’s how I felt when I started here, but after being part of a staff that has been recycled over and over again, I can tell that no one is having fun anymore. We’re in the same position that all of you who are in newspapers now are in.

The only difference is that working at the Alligator is optional, so people are finally choosing to leave, and they’re leaving heartbroken. They work their fingers to the bone every day only to get Dear John letters back from internships.

So once again, thank you for your encouraging words and testimonials, but for the Alligator to remain the place you remember it to be, it’s going to require much more.

I’ll keep you updated.

Jessie DaSilva
Editor-in-Chief, fall 2008

Since I posted this, I’ve received a lot of positive feedback and suggestions from alumni. We’ve also had an editor applicant, but it doesn’t fix the problems we’re still facing.

As I wrote to one alumna, if I had to boil everything down, I think our two improvements would be:

1. Monthly board meetings - The board of directors, being our publisher, has become far removed from our issues from only meeting once a semester.

The Alligator staff has been dwindling for about five years, and the board didn’t do anything until this semester when the last of our recycled staff decided to leave. If they had heard about our problems on a monthly basis, there would have been more time for brainstorming and alumni outreach.

2. New equipment/software - We’re not asking for top-of-the-line equipment and software, but what we have now is not even industry standard. We all recognize that the problem with technology is that it becomes outdated so quickly.

After 10 months, there’s already something better out. However, we’re working on computers that are 10 years old. It wouldn’t be a problem if it could support our outdated software, but it barely does that. Some of them don’t even have USB outlets for our thumb drives.

Meanwhile, all of our software is outdated. Photo doesn’t even have a recent version of Photoshop, which is a pretty basic need.

So if anyone has any additional ideas, shoot them my way. I have to write a report of our problems and some proposed solutions for our board and staff meeting on Friday. I’ll take as much input as I can get.

From my understanding, the paper is on very solid financial ground, though I won’t get into specifics. We have enough money for a full staff, which is more than many newspapers can say, and I’m very thankful for that.

However, here I am, with seven weeks left in the semester, and there is still a drastic shortage of writers.

Our budget allows for five university desk writers, three metro writers and one features writer. Right now, we have three university writers (one who was just hired within the past two weeks), two city writers and no features writers (just freelancers).

It doesn’t seem too bad at first. These are shortages we normally face. But let me put this into context.

We started this semester off with almost a full staff. University had a desk of five strong writers, leaving metro with the opportunity to have its pick of the freelancers.

Within a month, four of those writers quit, and only one had a valid excuse (16 credit hours). Meanwhile, barely any of our freelancers seem to be interested in staff positions.

We were not given any warning or reasoning as to why three of them left. I won’t lie. I was angry. But I thought we would find replacements relatively soon, especially as freelance writers started sending in assignments for their reporting classes. Not so.

I’ve been at this paper going on three years, and I can say recruiting has never been this difficult. For the first time, I’m hearing students turning down staff positions because they have to keep their GPA up just in case they have to choose a backup career if journalism doesn’t work out.

My hypothesis is that journalism students are jumping ship. They see the numbers, and they’re scared. I think we can’t find student writers because students may be switching majors or using journalism to prepare for law school. I plan on speaking with the college to see if enrollment data reveals any trends.

I understand the industry is in a bad state right now. Believe me, I’m scared about not having a job after graduation. However, this bad news is just a reminder that I have to try harder at what I’m doing now to prepare myself.

Not going into journalism isn’t an option for me. It’s my calling. Could a nice salary and designer shoes replace passion? I don’t think so.

I’m OK with shopping at Payless.

Almost 20 college newspaper editors and I will be live blogging tonight’s presidential debate for The New York Times’ political blog The Caucus.

Enjoy!

After I was selected as editor, I immediately started putting together my staff and working on issues for the Alligator. Now the end of my internship and the beginning of my editorship seem blended together in my memory.

Still, I’ll try and give an overview of the lessons I learned in Tampa and the lessons I’m learning in Gainesville.

The Tampa Tribune

I can’t really say I’m a better writer than I was at the beginning of the summer, but I still learned so much (and so much more than just the blog post experience).

During the summer, I learned different methods of interviewing sources from the experienced beat reporters who sat around me. I also got some of the best journalism advice during my last days.

I’m just going to list my favorite advice here:

• “Learn to work for yourself and not for anyone else. If you don’t, you’ll drive yourself crazy.” -Emily Seawell, online producer/copy editor
• “You need to read more Hemingway; you need to learn to say things without saying them. You’re writing too much and trying too hard.” -Copy editor from the CND (this was the best writing advice I’ve gotten in about a year).
• “Get used to bad editors. For every 10 editors you have, you’ll be lucky to get one good one.” -Metro desk reporter
• “Don’t expect nurturing or praise when you’re in the real world. Do your job well because you should.” -Another metro reporter
• Learn to keep your head up when newsroom morale is low. You’ll forget why you love journalism otherwise. -I got this from a few people
• Limit the amount of time you talk and read about layoffs and the scariness of the industry. You won’t be able to keep going every day if you don’t. -I picked this up from Mary Shedden, health reporter

The Alligator

When I started, I was confronted with a broken staff. My managing editors (Hilary Lehman and Ken Schwencke) and I spent our first week back in Gainesville meeting with members of every desk to assess their needs and hear what they wanted from us.

I think taking the extra time to come up with gameplans with the section editors really helped us earn some street cred with them early on. It showed them we cared to work with them to get their goals accomplished, so long as we worked within the constraints of their lives outside of the job, i.e. class, tests, boyfriends/girlfriends, family events, etc.

We’ve gotten the ball rolling on a lot of what we discussed, including starting a discussion about a new content management system. I already feel like Hilary, Ken and I have done so much, which gets me excited to find out where we’ll be at the end of the semester. I think our being excited and involved really makes the staff feel like they’re a part of something truly great.

I really feel like I was just born for this job. I like managing people and brainstorming with all the brilliant people who work here.

And following editors who haven’t been especially conscientious about the way they interact with the staff, I make sure to check myself before I wreck myself. This newsroom has always been a haven for me, and it would kill me to know I ruined that for someone else.

For example, the other night, I know I stepped over the line and snapped at a section editor for a late story, which I shouldn’t have done. Late stories happen. We didn’t miss deadline. The world was still intact. After I was done editing pages and talking over the night’s events with Hilary, I went and apologized. We hugged it out, and all was well.

I think that event really sums up why I love this newsroom and how much I love this job. At the end of the day, we’re all friends — regardless of deadlines or mistakes.

As of Aug. 1, I have the job. I’ve been looking forward to this since I started at the Alligator, and I’m surprisingly feeling a lot of mixed emotions now that I’ve got it.

When I started, I knew I would stick around out of loyalty to the paper and hoped to one day head the organization. However, as I started getting more involved with online journalism, the burning desire to take over grew from frustration with editors who ignored or looked down on our Web site from their high horse.

Some past editors saw the site as nothing more than a way to archive print stories and occasionally scoop The Gainesville Sun. As a student at a college newspaper, I can see the potential for our Web site to take risks and do some truly great journalism – with less bureaucratic oversight than a traditional news organization.

And knowing the types of people we’ve had on our online staff (i.e. Brett Roegiers and Megan Taylor), there’s no reason we shouldn’t be producing consistently stellar online content.

One concern I have is the content management system our site is running on. After some severe miscommunication, our well-meaning general manager signed a two-year contract for a very rigid and outdated CMS. The online staff should not have to spend most of its night shoveling stories onto the Web site.

It’s been a year, and I don’t see why we should continue dealing with the problems this CMS is causing. At the same time, it’s a matter of weighing the penalties of breaking the contract and switching to an open-source CMS with keeping the contract and letting the same limitations persist.

I know what I want, but I’m not a dictator, and I need to involve others in the decision-making process.

In the mean time, I’m getting these great online ideas from people who are returning for the fall, and I get so excited to hear them. Then I wonder how long it would take to make it happen or if we can even do them on this CMS, and I worry.

I just want the best for the Alligator. I want to make Alligator.org a journalism juggernaut. I lose sleep over potential setbacks.

All this time, I’ve imagined myself as being the one who could better the online product while maintaining the integrity of the print product. Now, I feel frustrated that maybe I won’t be the one to get the staff or administration to change their print-centric mindset.

I get discouraged, and I worry about my qualifications. I only know multimedia basics, but I guess it is a matter of mindset over skill set. At the same time, I know it’s going to be long and arduous process and that I have to keep my chin up.

I have so many ideas to start improving our Web site, but now I’m starting to feel overwhelmed. There is a big mess to clean up. It’s like I’m Ty Pennington on Extreme Home Makeover, except he’s not sure how many volunteers are going to show up.

Then when I feel down, I think of past editors who did a great job with the paper yet were rigid when it came to innovation and an understanding of the Web site’s potential. That’s the difference. I can see that, and I’m open to so many ideas.

As I’ve been telling prospective staffers, this is the semester for innovation and ideas. I don’t care how crazy it sounds; I will try any idea once. The way I see it, if we try something and it flops, well, we just won’t do it again. This semester is our chance to experiment.

My spirits have been picking up this week, though. One of my section editors agreed to stick around even though it meant turning down an internship.

“I just knew I would be leaving at the wrong time,” she said. “I didn’t want to look at the paper and Web site every day and wish I had been a part of it. I know you’re going to do a good job.”

Those were words I needed to hear.

The comments said Rob Curley’s Loudoun project was nothing new and insinuated that it was a failed project, which seemed based on a headline from the Wall Street Journal.

Based on the actual article, I don’t think LoudounExtra is really presented as a failed project. It seems to be fairly shown as a hyperlocal project that just wasn’t as good as it could have been because of a few key elements overlooked by Curley.

In Curley’s blog post about the article, he mentions that Russell Adams, the reporter, was concerned about the headline. As we all know, sometimes headlines don’t reflect the story as well as they could. Adams and Curley both agree on this point - Loudoun was not a “flop,” but it could have been a lot better.

Also in Curley’s post are the three missing elements that lead to LoudounExtra’s downfall: promotion, integration and communication.

I think we can all agree that if you don’t promote a Web site, link it to its mother Web site or communicate the site’s use to the community, there isn’t a good chance it’s going to develop a steady flow of visitors. LoudounExtra didn’t have an audience mostly because Curley didn’t connect the audience to the site, which he took full responsibility for.

The way I see it, there are other reasons that Loudoun wasn’t as effective as it could have been. Namely, the fact that the county is too large and diversified. As it says in the WSJ article, “Loudoun County is a 520 square-mile area with seven towns whose residents share little else besides a county government.”

This project of following a large county is really just doing the job of a regular regional newspaper. While I wouldn’t consider this a traditional hyperlocal experiment, it’s hyperlocal in comparison to The Washington Post’s average readership.

Still, look at that site! It’s a masterpiece of local journalism. I wish all local newspapers had a site like that.

For it to truly be hyperlocal, the site should be broken down even further to cities or even neighborhoods. This would require the same amount of extreme reporting effort focused on much smaller demographic areas.

I think that would be a great move for local journalism. If news organizations could evaluate the population of the community they’re serving, that could lead people to figure out what kind of news to play up. What’s the biggest group? Young families? The elderly? College students? News Web sites could easily play up issues or features that relate to the community the best.

That’s what the audience editors are for in the new structure at the Trib. They’re supposed to evaluate the demographic and what news it values. To me, that’s what hyperlocal is: Finding out who your readership is and getting them the news that relates to their lives.

Of course, the news won’t solely be tailored to the demographic. The readership needs its meat and potatoes news, too. But when it comes to placement on the Web site, audience information might make all the difference.

I was talking to some of my fellow interns over dinner last Friday, and they brought up a valid point. If the Trib is really committed to going hyperlocal, they’re going to have to rely on the bureaus a lot more. Because most of the layoffs came from those, I would hope to see more reporters distributed there from the main news center.

And to really make TBO a local information powerhouse like LoudounExtra, Internet training is a must. If it’s only to get people thinking in terms of Web site potential, even that would help. But it’s going to require a lot of footwork and database building. That data team in the reorganization is going to be the crux of the hyperlocal movement.

Also, I think TBO needs to find a few designers to come up with a site design that’s cleaner and easier to navigate. The site has all this great content and tons of great packages, and they get lost in the complexity of the design. It needs to be simple and effortless.

So while LoudounExtra might not have worked as well as it could have, that doesn’t speak for the entire hyperlocal movement. Local news is part of the job, but breaking it down into the hyperlocal will make it more personal to the audience.

It’s a move that could really improve coverage and the relationship with the audience, so long as a true commitment to it is made.