By: Graham Webster The Rocky Mountain News will launch one of the nation's largest citizen-journalism initiatives in May, when it debuts 40 neighborhood Web sites and 15 zoned print editions, all called YourHub.com.
The Rocky, a Scripps Howard paper in a joint operating agreement with MediaNews Group's Denver Post, was selected to run the initiative by the Denver Newspaper Agency, which runs advertising, circulation, and other business operations for both papers.
"It really started at the Denver Newspaper Agency among a taskforce of director-level people who were looking for ways to build the business," John Temple, the Rocky's president, publisher, and editor, told E&P. "Their analysis revealed that there was real economic opportunity in closer-to-the-ground community journalism."
The agency, which Temple said originally proposed the zoned print section, decided that one paper should run the project to save the cost of two sets of zoned sections. Temple said he and his staff felt strongly that the neighborhood coverage needed to have a strong Web component.
The plan now includes 40 neighborhood Web sites where anyone can post whatever they want (unless it's obscene or offensive). These sites will be more or less unedited, but some content from the sites will be retooled for a weekly print section that will be distributed to subscribers of both the Rocky and the Post.
Even though Temple describes the YourHub print edition as "a section of the Rocky Mountain News distributed by the Denver Newspaper Agency," the Rocky branding will remain modest in a market where the two newspapers maintain a strong rivalry despite their ties and their joint weekend editions.
There will be no Rocky Mountain News branding on the cover. In fact, the brand will only appear on page two, where the section will explain itself.
With 40 Web zones, YourHub.com will have a portal for every neighborhood in the Denver metro area, including Boulder, where The Daily Camera, another Scripps paper, has already launched a community Web site at mytown.dailycamera.com, which Temple says will compete with YourHub.com.
The Camera is already using content from its community Web site in print, but it does so in the regular news pages, Kevin Kaufman, the Camera's new media editor, told E&P. The Camera, which had been considering a community Web site since the mid 1990s, hopes that the Mytown sites take hold in Boulder County before the YourHub launch.
"I need to be able to get to those people quickly, first," Kaufman said. "They certainly trust us as a local medium. I want to get my brand out there before they do."
In addition to allowing users to post everything from community news items and calendar items to photos of pets, YourHub sites will also link to stories from any news source, not just the Rocky, that is carrying a story relevant to the neighborhood.
That means the site will certainly link to the competition, including the Post, and the Post's TV partner. But it will also link to any English-language story anywhere that has impact on the community, Temple said. Similarly, the Camera's site allows users to customize their own page with RSS feeds from other publications.
The Rocky's existing Web operation will help YourHub with its high-school sports coverage and other services already available on RockyMountainNews.com, but Mike Noe, the paper's online chief, isn't concerned that the new sites will steal traffic.
Most of his site's traffic comes between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Noe told E&P. "My hope is YourHub becomes a complement to that, and you see more people visit after work," he said.
Once YourHub has gained some momentum, a freestanding YourHub staff will assemble the print section each week, editing and updating the best of the news content, as well as the online calendar and lots of "faces and names," according to a YourHub manual provided to E&P.
Ad sales teams will divide the 40 Web sites and the 15 print editions into 10 advertising zones, creating competition for community papers such as the weekly Canyon Courier in Evergreen.
"I feel like David against Goliath, in a way," Brad Bradberry, who publishes the Courier, told Westword, a Denver weekly. "They've got more money than God."
Post editor Greg Moore did not return a call for comment Wednesday afternoon.
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