By: Staff Reports First Dailies Team With National News Outlet
MSNBC.com announced that three daily newspapers have joined its local affiliate network, providing local news coverage to Media Metrix's top-ranked news site. It's the first time MSNBC.com has incorporated local print reporting from major daily newspapers.
As first reported in E&P Online's weekly e-letter Tuesday, The Arizona Republic, The Boston Herald, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer have agreed to provide local news to MSNBC.com's network that already consists of Web sites from 90 local TV stations and 11 print outlets. (The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal provide national news to MSNBC.com.)
As MSNBC.com affiliates, the newspapers will provide daily local news stories and headlines for posting on co-branded pages. The co-branded pages will carry links back to the newspaper Web sites, which will also post links to MSNBC.com's home page.
'If we can piggy-back on MSNBC.com to extend our brand nationally, then we'll meet our goal,' said Bill Weber, vice president and editor at BostonHerald.com, of the new partnership. Weber hopes the MSNBC deal will attract general interest users who would use MSNBC as a portal when looking for information on Boston.
MSNBC, which does not require newspapers to provide content to the news site exclusively, had the tables turned while negotiating with these major dailies. 'One city, one source,' said Uli Haller, manager of MSNBC.com's local affiliate program, when asked what the newspapers wanted from the deal. Haller said MSNBC would try not to mix sources in cities; so in Boston's case, MSNBC.com will not deal with The Boston Globe.
The Boston Herald has already partnered with CNN.com and AOL Digital City for national distribution of its local content, but Weber said he hasn't yet reaped the benefits of these deals in regards to national distribution. However, BostonHerald.com has been able to post CNN video content on the site, a valuable addition as papers seek multimedia content.
'Ultimately, we are hoping to get MSNBC video content,' Weber added.
MSNBC.com has differed in its approach to newspapers from CNN.com. CNN.com has utilized a third party - online content syndicator uclick - to handle content exchanges between newspaper affiliates and CNN.
Weber said MSNBC seems to be setting this up on their own and he's hoping the partnership will be up and running in a couple of weeks.
Haller also hopes a couple of weeks is all it will take to handle backroom details. MSNBC will use eXtensible Markup Language (XML) to post the local content on its site. 'People are using a wide range of publishing systems, but so far, everybody's been amenable to XML,' Haller said.
Pioneer Newspapers, which became the first newspaper group to join the MSNBC local affiliate network in mid-June, started posting its local content on MSNBC last week.
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Staff Reports
Related story:
MSNBC.com FINDS LOCAL CONTENT AT PIONEER NEWSPAPERS (06/15/00)
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