When the local Byerly Foundation wanted to convene Hartsville, S.C., residents earlier this year to discuss community needs, it reached out to Hartsville Today to promote the talks and collect the ideas that surfaced.
Residents identified several concerns when they first met on Jan. 31, including better housing and public safety, a revitalized downtown area and a more developed town identity.
However, what they most needed, the group said, was better communication in the community. That’s a need that Hartsville Today intends to help meet.
In January alone, Hartsville Today received more than 3,000 visits and more than 22,000 page views. Users looked at between five and six pages per visit, on average.
But the citizen media start-up is still seeking to expand its stable of contributors. Through the first week of February, Hartsville Today had 71 stories posted from 18 contributors. Graham Osteen, publisher of the Hartsville Messenger, which partners with the University of South Carolina on the project, has promised to expand marketing efforts to seek new sources of stories.
The university has also increased recruiting efforts. It has contacted Boy Scout and Girl Scout council offices to spread the word among area troops, and the project has reached out to local minorities, especially the area’s growing Hispanic community. Jim Faile, Messenger managing editor, has spearheaded this effort through contact with Hispanic religious leaders.
“These kind of recruitment efforts allow the paper to forge new or deeper connections with a broader spectrum of Hartsville,” said project leader Doug Fisher, professor at USC’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications.
Still, Fisher emphasized the need for contributions from dedicated volunteers and Messenger staff writers.
“The most successful sites, as judged by frequency and content of postings, have generally been those with a core of paid or volunteer staff,” Fisher said. “That staff, even if an army of one, provides the focus that successfully drives any editorial product. Sites such as Backfence.com in suburban Washington, [D.C.], YourHub in Denver and Bayosphere in San Francisco have faced second-guessing as the early hype gave way to the reality that if you build it, they won’t necessarily come.”
Fisher said that Hartsville Today will explore those questions, such as what level of involvement the local publication – in this case, the Messenger — needs to have to make a citizen media site successful. “Simply throwing open the gates and inviting the community in is likely to produce less-than-desired results,” he added.
Going forward, Hartsville Today plans to hire stringers who will take cell phones and cameras to cover spring events, especially recreational sports. The Messenger staff has also pledged to look for more opportunities to use the site to extend its coverage, including posting sports reports immediately after games rather than waiting for the Messenger’s print runs on Wednesdays and Fridays.
“It’s this kind of dependable, targeted content that will help generate income for the site and, we hope, posts from the rest of the community,” Fisher said.
