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How to follow the biggest gathering of local indie online news sites

This time next week, the country's biggest gathering of local independent online news sites will be in full swing at Columbia College in Chicago, with publishers from 39 different states represented.

The 2017 LION Summit Oct. 26-28 will feature two and a half days of speakers, panels and workshops on the revenue, journalism, technology, audience development and community engagement issues facing the local news business. New this year will be a half-day "boot camp" for new publishers and idea-stage entrepreneurs.

There's still time to register and join us. But if you can't make it to Chicago this year, you can still follow the livestream of a number of sessions next week at lionpublishers.com. You can also join in on the conversation using the #LION17 hashtag on Twitter and following our conference attendee follow list.

If you'll be with us in Chicago, be sure to check out our conference FAQ and download the conference mobile app.

Related: Norwegian journalists will attend 2017 LION Summit to learn from growth of U.S. local independent online news startups. Advice on email newsletters, web and mobile design on tap at summit.


Covering local news (and paying for it) in a big city

Discussions of "news deserts" conjure visions of rural middle-America communities where a local newspaper has shut down, yet some of the most heavily populated communities in the country have no local journalists keeping watch on local tax dollars, schools and courts.

Reversing the decline of local news coverage in major U.S. cities, and the unique challenges of paying for local journalism in urban markets will be on the agenda of the 2017 LION Summit Oct. 26-28 in Chicago.

A session scheduled for Saturday morning, Oct. 28, will focus on sites that are doing neighborhod-specific local news coverage in big cities. It will feature Jesus Sanchez, publisher of The Eastsider in Los Angeles, Led Black of the Uptown Collective in Harlem and Washington Heights, Dina Rabiner of Bklyner, Darryl Holliday of Chicago's City Bureau, and Evan Moore, an independent journalist in Chicago.


What a national news journalist learned from launching a local site

Tasneem Raja is a writer and radio producer with lots of national news experience at outlets many would consider firmly in the "big city and coastal elite media bubble." So why did she launch a local independent online news site in the red state community of Tyler, Texas, and what is she learning? She'll be spekaing at the 2017 LION Summit Oct. 26-28 in Chicago, the country's largest gathering of local independent online news publishers.

We asked her for a preview.

"When I first starting visiting Tyler in 2012, I had a fairly generic (and, in retrospect, embarrassing) big-city idea of what a place like this was all about. But as I got to know people and local organizations, I realized that there's this whole thriving web of people who are deeply invested in issues of social justice, racial reconciliation, identity, food access, income inequalities, and so on."


LION Podcast: Hiring, managing and paying advertising sales reps

Three veteran local independent online news site publishers with strong track records in advertising sales offer their advice on hiring, managing and paying local advertising sales reps in the latest episode of LION's podcast.

Having a dedicated sales rep has proven to be a key difference between local news sites that reach sustainability and those that don't. But making the leap on that kind of investment, and finding qualified people to fill such a role, can be a major challenge for a local news startup.

Scott Brodbeck of ARLNow.com and RestonNow.com, Kelly Gilfillan of Home Page Media in Tennessee and Jay Allred of Richland Source in Ohio offer advice on how to navigate that decision.


News About Local Independent Online News Sites

MEMPHIS: “Fierce urgency of now”: This year-long project aims to fill the gap on inequality reporting in Memphis.

PRO PUBLICA: ProPublica Local Reporting Network seeks proposals.

SALINE POST: A small-town Michigan local news site said goodbye. Then readers stepped in.


Tools and Tips: Advertising and Revenue

AD FRAUD How seemingly-credible players in the ad supply chain can play an active role in — and profit from — fraud.

AD MEASURES: ‘The conversation moved on’: Time-based ad sales hit a wall.

AD TECH: Publishers can monetize safe content, quality environment. Publishers are already feeling pain from Apple’s move against ad tracking. It’s surprisingly easy for anyone to buy ads that track location and app usage, study says. Twelve data questions help advertisers understand audience behavior. Three reasons marketers can’t depend on data alone. The ad industry is changing — here’s what publishers can expect.

FOUNDATIONS: How can national funders build capacity that's authentically local? How local-national funding partnerships can strengthen local news. George Soros transfers billions to Open Society Foundations.

FUNDRAISING: A quick checklist for writing effective email appeals.

MEMBERSHIP: “De Correspondent” and the blueprint for a successful membership model.

MOBILE: What does “real mobile-first” mean to the media industry? USA Today offering $2.99 a month ad-free news app experience.

NATIVE ADVERTISING: Vox Media Pitches Signature ‘Explainer’ Format to Advertisers.

NEWSLETTERS: Using Data Science Tools for Email Audience Analysis: A Research Guide. Politico uses pop-up newsletters to test new European markets. Meet the startup that wants to help you build a subscription newsletter business overnight.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: As news organizations around the world struggle with advertising, more are prioritizing the individual reader. News paywalls are bad for society, says BuzzFeed’s Jonah Peretti.

VIDEO: Facebook has created a fake demand for video. Complex is the latest media company to lay off staff amid a pivot to video. Why different video ad channels require different success metrics. Facebook Live cuts out the middle man, adds its own screen-sharing feature.


Tools and Tips: Journalism and Technology

ANALYTICS: Five Steps To Sharing Analytics Throughout The Newsroom.

AR: Looking at the Augmented Newsroom of the Future.

COLLABORATION: Six models of journalistic collaboration. Four newsrooms, 350 volunteers ready to engage Virginians on sea's rise.

DATA: Can you trust government data or even find it? Many are sounding the alarm. Not a revolution (yet): Data journalism hasn’t changed that much in 4 years, a new paper finds.

FOIA: State: Wellesley can ignore public records request.

IMPACT: How the USA Today Network Is Measuring Impact in Its Newsrooms.

LIBRARIES: Journalists, your local librarian is a powerful ally.

OPIOIDS: Some of the best opioid coverage is not where you’d expect.

PERSONALIZATION: News personalization could help publishers attract and retain audiences — making political polarization even worse.

RACE: Covering a country where race is everywhere.

SOCIAL MEDIA: The New York Times released new staff social media guidelines, so phew, thankfully that’s settled. The New York Times' New Social Media Rules Are a Surrender to Its Worst Critics.

TECH: Media's focus on technology tends to be short-term, shows survey.

TRUST: Building news that audiences can trust.


Industry News

ALGORITHMS: The Unexamined Algorithm Is Not Worth Using.

ALT WEEKLIES: Washington City Paper’s Owner Puts It Up for Sale. LA Weekly is being sold to Semanal Media, a mysterious new company.

CANADA: Postmedia Network reports sharply lower Q4 print ad revenue.

CROWDSOURCING: The crowdsourcing fallacy. Have a big problem… The crowd can fix it! Wait, will they?

FACEBOOK: Sheryl Sandberg got everything wrong about Facebook's role as a media company. Google, Facebook not forthcoming about local profits. Local Media Consortium Not About to Retreat From Its Google and Facebook Ties. When should newsrooms not use Facebook for audience engagement? When they actually want to make money. BuzzFeed CEO: Google, Facebook Should Share More Revenue. Facebook Stories open to Pages, bringing brands to the ghost town. Facebook Tests Letting Marketers Scour Posts and Comments. Facebook Is Officially Rolling Out Its Explore Alternative News Feed. Facebook admits Russia agents used Messenger to disrupt U.S. presidential election. Facebook Wants To Help Secure The Next Canadian Federal Election.

FAKE NEWS: Fake news: the hacking of democracy. Making media literacy great again. Even smart people are shockingly bad at analyzing sources online. This might be an actual solution. What Facebook and Google Can Learn From the First Major News Hoax. The real history of fake news. Want to be a better online sleuth? Learn to read web pages like a fact-checker. The Pro-Free Speech Way to Fight Fake News. How Russia used social media to divide Americans. Google Serves Fake News Ads in an Unlikely Place: Fact-Checking Sites. How the Russians pretended to be Texans — and Texans believed them. That content recommendation network everyone loves to hate investigating Russia-linked U.S. election tampering. Why the Russia fake news scandal hasn’t touched Snapchat. Fact-checking fake news on Facebook works - just too slowly. Facebook and Google Helped Anti-Refugee Campaign in Swing States. There is “nothing resembling consensus” about whether the online misinformation problem can actually be solved.

GANNETT: Four female journalists file equal pay lawsuit against Detroit Free Press.

GUARDIAN: Guardian to invest in tech startups that support future of news with £42m venture capital fund.

HATE: Media struggles to develop strategies for covering hate incidents.

INDIA: One of India’s most famous newspapermen is turning to digital with a political journalism platform.

LA TIMES: LA Times top editor warns staff about union.

MEDIUM: A 100% transparent look at my first Medium paycheck.

NY TIMES: NYT's Golden: 'Everything we do in one way or another is to increase engagement.'

PHILADELPHIA: Behind the digital curve, Philadelphia Media Network tries to straighten out its brand.

PODCASTING: Panoply’s Pinna might just be the first really interesting attempt to get people to pay for podcasts. If You Want to Connect with Audiences, Start Building Podcasts. These tools will help make your audio suitable for social.

PRESS FREEDOM: Trump’s threats against the press may be toothless. But they’re far from harmless. Sessions says he can’t ‘make a blanket commitment’ not to jail journalists. Fighting ‘the Gawker effect’ in the wake of Weinstein. Covering protests has become the riskiest job in journalism. Press freedom threats, abroad and at home.

PRINT: Retail blues worsen, hitting newspaper print advertising hard. What newspapers lose with the elimination of local publishers.

TRUMP: ‘Our president is often not brand-safe’: Why publishers struggle to monetize the Trump bump. Poll: 46 percent think media make up stories about Trump.

TWITTER: One person’s history of Twitter, from beginning to end. Twitter Moments likely has more than 92 million monthly uniques — more than CNN, the New York Times, or the Washington Post. Twitter drafts new rules for fighting abuse and hate speech.

WASHINGTON POST: Jeff Bezos takes aim at union workers at the Washington Post.


UPCOMING EVENTS

LION SUMMIT - CHICAGO: Register now! LION Publishers' annual conference will be held Oct. 26-28 in Chicago.

LION WEBINARS: Upcoming LION webinars are free for members and just $15 for non-members.
* A PAYWALL MODEL FOR LOCAL ONLINE NEWS: Jay Senter, publisher of the Shawnee Mission Post in Kansas, and Mark Henderson, publisher of the Worcester Sun in Massachusetts, will discuss their experiences with and best practices for paid subscription/paywall business models from 2 to 3 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 14.
* FACEBOOK LIVE IN LOCAL NEWS COVERAGE: Charlotte-Anne Lucas of NOWCastSA will offer advice and discuss best practices on the technical requirements of livestreaming video on Facebook, building an audience for livestreams, and choosing the right topics and events to cover with live video from 2 to 3 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 12.


Is Your LION Publishers Membership Up for Renewal?
 
For many of our LION Publishers members, it's time to renew! Your membership includes participation in the LION Publishers Den on Facebook, networking and support from fellow LION publishers, our new newsletter, discounted rates on media liability and directors and officers insurance and more. 

Plus, being a member gives you access to a members-only rate to the LION Summit – a savings of up to $175 compared to the non-member rate. If your membership is due for renewal, please go to http://www.lionpublishers.com/members/dues/renew to submit your payment. Those who opt for multi-year membership save, and easy, secure payment options are available via credit card or through Paypal. (Not sure when your membership expires? You can look it up easily on LIONPublishers.com.)

 
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