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Media Buzz: Neighborhood News is Big Business

SEPTEMBER 28, 2010

Local news is making a bold-faced comeback as a Big Idea.

There’s a new trend happening in journalism: News is going local as media companies harness the internet’s power to think small.

AOL’s recently-launched Patch has poured millions in investment cash into the creation of custom local content, hoping to include more than 500 U.S. neighborhoods by the end of December. As city mouse to Patch’s country cousin, the New York Times has been busy building its own patchwork quilt of news coverage called The Local, starting with Fort Greene and Clinton Hill in Brooklyn and featuring the recent launch of a community news center for the more high-profile East Village. Registered Times readers can become contributors, and appropriate contributors can be easily selected from the community to cover stories they’re close to.

The new local hopefuls are tossing their hats into a ring already filled with contenders: Outside.in—a hyper-local news aggregator (which, in turn, pulls content from city-centric sites like Gothamist and local bloggers)—appears on local news sites like the New York Post, and they’ll all be duking it out for coveted local advertising dollars.