Gordon Joseloff began covering the news in Westport, Conn., as a teenage reporter for the Westport Town Crier newspaper.
Now, after a journalism career that spans more than two decades and at least three continents, Joseloff has returned to Westport and its population of 26,000 as a new sort of town crier. As founder and editor of WestportNow.com, he leads a group of volunteer writers and photographers in reporting the goings-on of his hometown, from high school football to the troubles of Westport resident Martha Stewart.
WestportNow is one of the first commercial, community-focused Web sites with a veteran journalist as its driving force. The site blends Joseloff’s strong community involvement with his decades of journalism experience. After 11 years as a UPI correspondent in New York, London and Moscow, Joseloff joined CBS News in 1975. For the next 16 years, he covered some of the era’s defining news events from New York, Moscow and Tokyo, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the deadly Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, India, and the first Gulf War.
Joseloff later served as vice-president for Simba Information Inc., a media consulting and publishing firm. At Simba, he founded and edited Media Daily, an online media news publication. He’s now semi-retired, managing family-owned real estate and running WestportNow. In addition, Joseloff is the elected moderator of Westport’s town legislature and a member of its volunteer fire and emergency medical technician corps.
Combining that kind of community involvement with news is something Joseloff could never do as a mainstream journalist. Yet it helped to spawn his new enterprise.
Though Westport already has three newspapers, including one daily, Joseloff still saw an opportunity when he launched the site in March 2003. “I felt Westport was not well served by existing media and would welcome and support an online, 24/7 news service,” he said. Westport is a Web-friendly town, according to Joseloff, with a high percentage of broadband users and well-to-do, educated residents. The only locally owned daily paper, The Hour of Norwalk, has just one reporter covering Westport. The town’s other two papers are the weekly Westport Minuteman and the twice-a-week Westport News. The News and the Minuteman are both owned by out-of-state companies.
“Until WestportNow,” Joseloff said, “there was no source of real local news in real time.” The site is updated every day, around the clock, depending on how much is happening around town. Though Joseloff writes most of the news and takes many of the site’s photos, unpaid volunteers from the community provide news tips and write regular columns on wine and consumer information.
Joseloff’s contributors include “Fran,” a journalist and mother of three who writes the “Fran’s List” consumer column, one of WestportNow’s most-visited features. Writing anonymously, she compares local prices for everything from a cup of coffee to a gallon of gas. Her readers’ “hands-down favorite” column, she said, spotlighted some of the best and most hardworking sales associates at local businesses. Fran said her readers frequently suggest new column ideas and let her know which articles they enjoyed. “I believe Fran’s List is so popular because nothing else like it exists (in town),” she said. “It has frankly crossed over from consumer column to a true public service.”
In addition to writers such as Fran, Joseloff has invited local photographers to contribute to WestportNow. In late 2004, he began syndicating the site’s photos through Zuma Press, which generally buys photos of some of the town’s celebrity residents. In addition to Stewart, town celebs include Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward and Don Imus. Some WestportNow photos have since appeared in worldwide newspapers, magazines, and in one case, ABC News. Joseloff said he doesn’t syndicate photographs from community contributors without their permission and shares syndication revenues with photographers.
Joseloff solicits community contributors through text ads on the site and through speeches to local groups. “I even offer door-to-door service,” Joseloff said. He visits interested residents’ houses to help direct them to the site or transfer a photo they wish to contribute to his laptop.
Joseloff said he needs more community writers, especially when covering “hard news.” Joseloff’s involvement in Westport’s town government and emergency services challenges him to avoid conflicts of interest. “Generally, I try not to do stories about events where I am an active participant,” he said. “I leave such coverage up to the newspapers.” When he does cover such stores, Joseloff said he tries to keep his reporting duties separate from his community service. That may become more difficult in the future: Joseloff is considering running for the leadership of Westport’s town government, a more active position than his moderator duties. “I have to decide soon whether I want to report the news or make it,” he said.
In the meantime, he keeps a close eye on WestportNow’s content. Though Joseloff edits every story and photo on the site, community members who wish to respond directly to the news can post comments to each story or photo. Those comments are left untouched “except to eliminate libel, slander and naughty words,” he said.
Stories about local celebrities tend to draw lots of comments, Joseloff said. Sometimes, those comments even generate news leads of their own. For instance, when former Secret Service agent Larry F. Stewart was accused of perjury after testifying at Martha Stewart’s insider trading trial in May 2004, his ex-wife Sue spotted the story on WestportNow and posted a comment, alleging that one of Larry’s co-workers had unfairly accused him. Following an investigation, a federal jury acquitted Larry Stewart on all charges in October 2004. Jury members later told reporters they doubted the truthfulness of Stewart’s accuser.
In addition to celebrity-related news, Joseloff said that residents who regularly commute to nearby New York City follow the site’s coverage of transportation, weather and power outages. WestportNow’s “Today’s Teardown” feature photos of old houses that will soon be demolished for new luxury homes. Community members have also begun to use the site to provide online tributes when WestportNow posts death notices. For example, when Edwin Mitchell, founder of a chain of local clothing stores, died in January 2004, residents posted their fond memories of working for him decades. “Many people find commenting on obituaries an easy way to offer tributes to the deceased and provide some comfort to the family and others who mourn the person’s loss,” Joseloff said.
Joseloff takes no salary for his work, successfully covering WestportNow’s operating costs by selling ads on the site. A subscription model was never an option, he said: “I learned from Media Daily 10 years ago that people are generally reluctant to pay for online content.” As the site becomes more popular, he hopes to increase the number of local businesses advertising on the site. “We are making progress and increasing awareness month by month,” he said.
That awareness extends not only to the community of Westport, but to its existing news outlets. “It’s company policy not to discuss competition,” said Will Rowlands, editor of the Westport News, when asked about the impact of WestportNow.
Joseloff says WestportNow has grown from 1,500 hits to its front page in its first month of operation to almost 50,000 today. At least 325,000 people have visited WestportNow’s front page since it launched; nearly 85,000 of them are repeat visitors. And those statistics don’t include users who bypass the front page to go directly to pages inside the site.
“Many people who have not heard of WestportNow are delighted to learn about it,” Joseloff said, “and then tell their friends, children and other family members about it.” Joseloff said his e-mails indicate that site visitors from across the country use the site to keep in touch with Westport people and events..
“The response from readers has been overwhelmingly positive,” Joseloff said, emphasizing that WestportNow isn’t trying to take the place of newspaper coverage. Instead, “it provides an interactive and, I believe, valuable local service to the community.”
Some regular readers are even glad for those slow news days when the site doesn’t update. “One woman called me up and said, ‘Gordon, you haven’t put anything up for 18 hours,’” Joseloff said. When he began to apologize for the lack of news, she explained that it was a comfort to her. “If there is no news,” she told him, “I know nothing bad has happened.”
