“The bottom line is that we are pleased with our progress so far.”
There have been frustrations. And there have been setbacks. But Ben Burns, the editor and publisher of Grosse Point Today (and the Director, Journalism Program, Wayne State University in Detroit) says that things are, over all, going well.
“The bottom line is that we are pleased with our progress so far,” says Burns. “That doesn’t mean we haven’t had frustrations and setbacks, it just means we feel we are meeting our original goal of being an essential part of the Grosse Pointe communities within 12 to 18 months.”
Like many New Voices sites, Burns says he has met with mixed results from freelance contributors/citizen journalists. GPT currently has about 12 professionals volunteering their time or reporting efforts on a regular basis and an additional dozen that contribute sporadically. Burns says other retired or out-placed professionals have also promised to write stories but have yet to deliver.
Students were also part of the editorial plan. But the first group of students – 10 from U of M-Dearborn and eight from Wayne State – “made modest contributions, fewer than 10 stories.” Burns says a more talented group of five WSU students have signed up this semester and are regularly covering council meetings in the five Pointes. Meanwhile, WSU is considering making Grosse Point Today’s online Community Journalism course as a required core course on public affairs reporting.
While there have been some difficulties with sustaining the efforts of volunteer contributors, important stories are still being done. Managing Editor Nancy Nall Derringer wrote about the existence of a Twitter war between City Council representatives and opponents who would like them out of office, a story that generated considerable attention. Additionally GPT’s story about how a local charitable institution managed to lose $12 million by speculating in real was also widely read and resulted in letters to the editor of the local weekly, which Burns says had never ran a word on the original story.
The site is also running interviews, bios and pictures of all candidates for office this November, which the local newspaper does not do. GPT has also made an arrangement with two professional videographers to shoot local events, particularly sports and post them on the site. These have proved popular with local residents as the site has RSS and Twitter features that update around the clock.
The story on the marketing side is also mixed but hopeful. Grosse Point Today held its first marketing effort in September at what was billed as Grosse Pointes’ “World’s Greatest Block Party,” which Burns says generated very favorable responses from passersby. The increased visibility has also lead city officials to direct individuals and organizations with public service information to contact GPT.
“Our $1,000 marketing budget will provide refrigerator magnets, business cards for student reporters, hats and T-Shirts now that were are essentially completely in operation,” says Burns.
The marketing effort also resulted in a 24% increase in page views the following week.
“Our Google diagnostics report 3,308 visits in the past month and 11,942 page views,” says Burns. “The average user looked at 3.61 pages per visit. We had a bounce rate above 50 percent, probably due to the fact we are aggregating via Google all stories that mention Grosse Pointe. It has proved to be a popular feature.”
The site’s relationship with a professional advertising firm has been more complicated. Grosse Point Today has been working with “The Little Blue Book” a directory publisher that agreed to handle its advertising, billing and account management. But this has not resulted in as concentrated an effort to sell advertising as Burns and his team had hoped it would. So GPT recently hired someone to sell ads to complement what The Little Blue Book is doing. But Burns says this is not an ideal situation.
‘We may have to re-evaluate the relationship [with Blue Book] in order to increase advertising sales,” says Burns. “That would mean putting a sales person on our staff and handling the billing and, receipts which would mean supporting an office manager which we prefer not to do.”
Gross Point Today continues to make an effort to reach out to its community. For instance, it has joined the local Chamber of Commerce on a trade arrangement. Burns says GPT is also looking to cement its journalistic credentials, joining the Online Media Association and applying to join the Michigan Press Association.
