How does this work as a package/product?
Is it too mediocre or is it better than “the enemy’s” product?

They’re only “the enemy” because they choose to be,
because they refuse to listen to the truth.

They don’t have to be the enemy,
they could just as easily be the ally,
but only if they would listen to reason.

Journalists who can’t nose-out the truth terrify me,
but journalists who can’t handle the truth, really really terrify me.

With smaller community newspapers, they stand a much better chance because they’re already ‘hyper-local’ and most only cover their neighborhoods.

It wouldn’t be hard to get the community involved by setting up a multi-user WordPress blog for small towns and communities and really pushing the content like Andrew suggested using Youtube, Kyte, Flickr, facebook and Myspace.

And while you’re right, they do usually have the worst websites, they are also less likely to employ someone who could help them turn their product around. I believe the reason why this happens is that everyone wants to flock to the largest daily newspapers without even considering working for a smaller outfit because of the prestige of being able to say that I work for the “XYZ” newspaper.

The best part about community newspapers is their coverage of high school sports. This is where I really see community newspapers succeeding. Their coverage is unmatched where larger daily newspapers usually miss the point.

I think the point that you should be making is: small town newspapers should be afraid of mobile internet. Technology is always the last thing to hit small towns with newspapers who have a circulation of less than 30k/Daily. They should be afraid because when the big push for mobile tech hits, they aren’t going to be ready.

For small news companies that want to build their online presence, it might be wise to employ (or otherwise exclusively retain) a group of local, tech-savvy people to post and promote the paper’s content using existing platforms such as YouTube, Flickr, WordPress, etc.

Each of these people might have their own site/blog (or YouTube channel), but would feature the newspaper’s content, along with their opinions, and the comments from other people. The news company could build a simple site of links pointing to these citizen webmasters.

Many larger newspapers already have branded YouTube channels, Twitter feeds, and robust blogs linked to the newspaper’s home page.

For original content, and to get more frequent updates, the citizen webmaster would have the ability to be a content provider, as well.

As long as there are disclaimers posted, I see no problem with a parent posting baseball scores or football videos for the town of [X], even if that parent has a child on the team.

People are going to post this stuff anyway, might as well try to tie it to the newspaper’s work. Put the “community” back in “community newspapers.”

Once a month, all of the citizen webmasters would meet at the newspaper for basic journalism training, critiques, and to discuss new Web technologies.

As for archives, Pat, you’re right. I can’t think of a cheap, easy solution for small-town news markets. Is the public still going to a library for this stuff?