When the Media Policy Initiative hosted an event Wednesday evening on local news and online media in our home base of Washington, D.C., the event was, for lack of a better phrase, a community affair. After an introduction by NAF Media Policy Initiative Research Associate Kara Hadge, NAF President and veteran journalist Steve Coll moderated an engaging panel discussion and Q&A session with four panelists drawn from all areas—both geographical and journalistic—of the District. However, the definition of a “community” in the D.C. media landscape posed one of the biggest dilemmas for the panel, and there was no clear-cut definition.
Panelist Veronica O. Davis, an urban planner whose blog “Life in the Village” at fairfaxvillage.blogspot.com focuses on Fairfax Village and Hillcrest, SE, noted that her readers trust someone like her who is part of the “community,” the physical area where she and her readers live. She interacts with her audience and their specific issues on a personal level. Davis pointed out that The Washington Post “can keep moving, but if I blog something offensive, I have to face my neighbors.”
There was some give-and-take between bloggers on the panel when it came to discussing the purpose of hyperlocal media. Davis emphasized the blog’s role in accountability, pushing local leaders and government to fix problems in the neighborhood. On the other hand, Dan Silverman of “Prince of Petworth” sees his blog more as a place to stimulate potentially difficult community discussions—a hub for people and connectivity rather than politics and complaints. In this vein, Silverman said that he doesn’t consider himself to be a “journalist;” he leaves the big investigative work to institutions like the Post that have the appropriate resources and skills to spend two years on the recent “Top Secret America” series, for example. Building on his experience as a Public Media Corps fellow teaching media literacy to the youth of Columbia Heights, panelist Ariel Valdez disagreed, asserting that citizens can feed the journalistic process by taking the initiative to report on key local issues.
In any case, DC citizens are not shy about participating in the local media landscape. According to panelist Justin Jouvenal, Web editor of the Washington Post’s PostLocal.com, the DC news scene has demonstrated that content dictates journalistic form. Jouvenal recalled that the most popular Washington Post feature during the Snowmageddon last winter was not the traditional articles, but a user-generated slideshow of pictures from all over the city; over 3,000 were uploaded in total. It is subjects like the snowstorm, neighborhood crime, etc. that turn Washingtonians into avid local media consumers and participants. And of course it doesn’t hurt to post a few pictures of cute neighborhood cats, as the Prince of Petworth does.
