The NOW in NewCastleNOW stands for News & Opinion Weekly, an online newspaper that’s bursting with local content. The site actually got launched over the summer thanks to a news nudge from the New York Times.
Managing Editor Christine Yeres tells the story: “We had advance warning that our web address would be mentioned in the Times. We wanted residents to meet with something more than ‘Under Construction’ when they visited, so for five days we worked to put together a sample NewCastleNOW.org. A severe storm passed through the week before and there was plenty of damage; school children stranded on their buses, people in their cars, waiting for live wires to be subdued. We made the storm the focus of our front page — along with a story about the three of us, our J-Lab grant and our purpose.”
Add an events calendar, a gardening advice column, an obituary of a beloved resident and voila: an online newspaper was born.
To promote the new site, they set up a mock wooden farm stand with a striped canopy in the library lobby. In the basket where someone might find fresh produce, they put flyers advertising the website and announcing upcoming planning meetings to be held at the library two in the evening, two in the daytime. The promotional strategy bore fruit: “The meetings drew every kind of person imaginable,” recounts Yeres, “from non-profits, churches, business; young and old, worker bees and aspiring writers, puzzle junkies, sports nuts.”
Smartly maximizing free promotional opportunities, NewCastleNOW founders persuaded five prominent local writers to offer a free mini-course in citizen journalism, workshops which were listed at no cost in the high school’s Continuing Education booklet mailed to every home in town.
“It feels like a barn-raising around here — in this town of both McMansions and more modest cottage homes, all equally without a news source for so long,” says Yeres. “We’re not just delivering news, but are making the place where people can find out from one another both what’s happening in our town (issues and events)and what others think.”
The site invites readers to become writers: “Familiarize yourself with NewCastleNOW.org. Read it, and see if you’re moved to write it! If you have an expertise or interest in writing for NewCastleNOW.org, either by consistently sending us events and calendar information about your non-profit, or by submitting feature articles of interest to the community, contact us.”
Yeres predicts that managing the flow of people and content will be a challenge. “We think the secret around here is to look and behave very much like a newspaper and not overwhelm people. We’ll work with them to edit their work. And we have to learn to delegate.”
“Whew! Since we launched on October 5, it’s been a crazy-busy and very exciting ride,” says Yeres, who holds a daily conference call with co-conspirators Anne Marie Fallon and Susie Pender. Together, the three share editing responsibility for everything posted on the site. The weekly edition publishes Fridays before dawn.
“We come up with great stories each week from conventional sources like budget materials, police and ambulance blotters; and from odder perspectives too, such as op-ed pieces by a cowardly conservationist; a travel journal from a college graduate searching for isolated Jewish communities around the world; a woman promoting community farm markets. We’ve covered a controversial schedule change proposed at our local high school and the story of the cancellation of remaining dances by the principal.”
Yeres expect NewCastleNow to develop a vibrant local sports section. “We found a guy who graduated from our high school and remembered aloud to me how much it meant to him and his friends in those days to be recognized in the local paper for their sports achievements. And we’re pairing him with a woman soccer player who feels ‘enough with the kids!’ and wants to emphasize team sports for adults. Together, they’ll make a great section.”
NewCastleNOW is aiming to partner with local cable access TV and the League of Women Voters so that the League’s written accounts of public meetings can be synchronized with cable-TV recordings, making it possible for people to find the parts most relevant to them. They are working to recruit contributors from Millwood (the smaller, lesser-known, non-Chappaqua hamlet of New Castle) and are inviting the town’s “constructive needlers” to write opinion pieces.
NewCastleNOW is planning to meet with the local chamber of commerce to make a pitch for the online paper to play a larger role in downtown revitalization. The site is publishing an old official report on the subject that few residents ever read. Says Yeres, “We think that we can ‘re-gift’ this material by presenting it in manageable-size chunks with pictures and related stories, and revive interest and a town-wide discussion about solutions.”
One local volunteer is pounding the pavement and the phones, promoting the site and selling ad space to businesses in the community. And editors are keeping track of which articles are most read, using Google Analytics to see how readership is building.
