My Athens

Partnership Saves Daily Local News for Athens

[If worse comes to worst, here’s a news story I’d like to read…]

By Dan Lorentz

ATHENS, GA., March 32, 2010 (PDN*) — If the plans of an unusual partnership go forward as expected, the daily news drought here will soon be over. That’s a welcome development for starved local news junkies. But the bigger story—according to national media observers—may turn out to be not that daily local news was saved, but how it was saved.

“What’s happening in Athens—the new partnerships, the new business model, the new print and online formats—might give us a template for keeping quality local journalism alive everywhere,” said Todd Chitlin, a noted media critic and professor at Iowa University’s prestigious journalism program in Dubuque.

Response to the “news drought”

The news drought started three months earlier in January when the Athens Banner, the daily newspaper, suspended operations after its parent company, the Atlanta-based Norris Publishing, Group, declared bankruptcy.

Almost immediately the publisher and staff at Athens Flagpole, the weekly alternative newspaper, launched a local news blog—called Athens Observed—and started publishing multiple news posts daily. Contributors not only included reporters from both papers and the local public radio station but also a group of independent bloggers and journalism students.

At the same time, a number of concerned citizens joined this group of contributors and formed a group called Save Our News to figure out a way to support quality local journalism, including some form of daily news.

“Like the death of a friend”

“That first morning without a paper was shock to many of us,” said Michael Smitts, a local activist and occasional blogger who helped organize the group. “It felt like the death of a friend, a friend who was always there, a friend who always had something interesting to say, who somehow managed to make you feel part of a family, a community.”

“We had to do something to fill the void,” Smitts said. “But right from the beginning nobody was interested in supporting shoddy, under-staffed news coverage or raising money to pay for wire services and syndicated columnists you can find anywhere. We wanted to find a way to support and sustain quality, locally-produced public service journalism. Ironically, the death of the local daily really jolted us into reinventing and improving local coverage.”

The Flagpole & Banner is born

After two and a half months of meetings—ranging from initial brainstorming sessions to discussions on fundraising strategy to a final round of agreement and contract signing, Save Our News announced the formation of Flagpole & Banner, a new local news organization for Athens under the leadership of Athens Flagpole publisher Commoner McPete and Athens Banner publisher Scooter Norris.

And today at a press conference held in the reopened newsroom of the Athens Banner, the publishers of the Flagpole & Banner promised that a new daily paper would be hitting newsstands and doorsteps in May. They also said to look forward to expanded Thursday and Sunday editions of the paper, and a new Web site devoted to local news, opinion and culture.

A non-profit with a big grant

Because the current model of for-profit local newspapers is losing its ability to subsidize quality public service journalism, the publishers said Flagpole & Banner would be a non-profit venture at least for the foreseeable future. Which means the bulk of money for the new effort will come foundation grants and individual gifts much like how public radio stations are currently funded.

The McKnight Foundation, which, like the more famous Knight Foundation, funds innovative local public service journalism projects, has agreed to multi-year, multi-million dollar grant to Flagpole & Banner.

A peak at the future

While many details have yet to be worked out, McPete and Norris discussed some of their plans for the fledgling news organization and its products. Here is a summary of their remarks.

A trim, tabloid daily paper. For readers who simply must have paper with their news, there will be the new Flagpole & Banner Daily Bulletin. It will be a tabloid with slightly larger type and run about 20 pages a day. It will be free, though customers who want home delivery will have to pay for that. Apart from one column of wire service briefs on national and international news, the paper will be devoted to local news and happenings. But readers will find their favorite comics, a sports section, classified ads, birth, crime reports, death and marriage announcements and locally written op-eds and letters.  In general, articles in the bulletin will be shorter than articles used to be in the old Athens Banner.

An expanded Thursday paper. On Thursdays, the Daily Bulletin will contain a second section, called “The Weekend Manual,” which will give readers a comprehensive guide to local happenings for the upcoming weekend. It will also include reviews of restaurants, movies, art shows, and music offerings.

An innovative, multi-sectioned Sunday paper. The big Sunday paper will come in as many as nine sections, including:

“News & Views,” which will contain a summary of the week’s local news, longer background and analysis articles on major local issues and locally written op-eds.

“Scrapbook,” devoted to documenting ordinary life in Athens during the past week, will feature lots of photos of local folks at school, work and play as well as interviews and brief sketches of Athenians.

“MFA”, or the music, film and arts section, will cover the people and the issues in the local arts community.

“Table and Garden” will give readers tips about what to cook and grow, and will cover the vibrant food and restaurant scene in town.

There will also be “Funny Pages,” a section devoted to mainly locally produced comics and humor; a “Shopper’s Guide” for smart local consumption; a sports section; a business and jobs sections and an indexed advertisment and coupon supplement.

A full-service Web hub. Most of what readers can get from a newspaper, they will get at Flagpole & Banner’s flagship Web site, to be called “Flagpole & Banner.” This will include news and feature stories about all things local—politics, business, crime, culture and sports. Readers will find obituaries and weather forecasts, too. And photos and video clips. What readers won’t find here is national and international news from wire services. This will be all local. The plan calls for an uncluttered, easy-to-read and navigate site that contains only a few discreet, non-up-popping ads. Every article and every photo will be easy to print, and there will be free access to the archives. The site will link to all the other content produced by Flagpole & Banner.

Standalone guides. Flagpole & Banner will publish two annual magazine format guides to Athens. The “Annual Manual,” which—much like Athens Flagpole’s Guide to Athens—will be a comprehensive guide to enjoying what Athens has to offer in terms of restaurants, bars, parks and art. The “Athens Power Guide” will orient citizens to community leaders, government and key local issues.

An AV department, and community forums. As part of its broader concept of what local news can be, Flagpole & Banner will not only produce text and graphical products, it plans to create or commission digital audio and video documentaries about local places, people and issues. These productions will be available online. The organization also plans to sponsor well-organized, well-publicized educational community forums on major local issues.

Athens: the new capital of local journalism?

“If Flagpole & Banner deliver what they are promising,” said media critic Chitlin, “Athens, Ga. will suddenly become the new national capital of local journalism. It’s a very exciting prospect—the city is so full of talent that I’m betting it will succeed and show the rest of the nation the way forward.”

___ ___ ___

* This post is a work of fiction. PDN is the acronym for Pipe Dream News, a fake news service that syndicates (actually, pretends to syndicate) fictional news accounts of people, places, things and happenings that do not exist but would be cool if they did.

In addition to being fictional, this post is not entirely composed of fresh material. I borrowed a little from posts I’ve written elsewhere, including one about a Sunday paper I’d like to see, and from a series about the future of local journalism.

DIY Membership Club Concept Tested in Athens, Ga.

[Here’s a news story I’d like to read one day…]

By Dan Lorentz

ATHENS, GA.  (PDN*) — You’ve heard of fitness clubs. Well, soon there may be commercial do-it-yourself clubs, too. If the concept takes off here, DIY clubs—where you can buy a membership and get access to tools, workspace, even personalized training—might one day become as ubiquitous as fitness clubs.

DIY Factory, Inc., a locally based company, today announced plans to open a do-it-yourself club next summer in a warehouse space at 149 Oneta St.

Imagine: buzzing activity

“The place will be buzzing with activity when you come in,” says company president Tracy Rowe squinting and smiling as she imagines the future and steps onto the dirt that will eventually be covered with the concrete floor of the club’s main workshop area.

 “There’ll be someone over there using one of the table saws to cut boards for a dining table,” Rowe continues, excitedly. 

“In the kitchen area, a family will be busy canning a winter’s supply of summer vegetables. Over here, somebody will be learning how to ‘paint’ a picture using a computer. Another person will be stopping in to pick-up a rototiller. Members will be working at their reserved workbenches. Project assistants will be walking around, answering questions, helping out with this or that.”

Membership benefits

Rowe says DIY Factory, Inc. hopes to have 800 members—each paying somewhere around $40 a month—already signed-up for the club’s grand-opening, tentatively scheduled for early June 2010.

And what exactly will that membership fee buy? Rowe says as a club member you will be able to:

Borrow tools from the extensive tool library. Tools for electrical work. For plumbing, sewing, masonry, carpentry. For yard work and gardening. For soldering and welding Kitchen equipment. Ladders. Computers, software. And more.

Get your own workspace. This might be a workbench in the open work area. Or, if you pay a little extra, you can reserve a private workshop.

Find out where to find supplies. Need a bunch of old sci-fi paperbacks for a mosaic project? Lots of faded blue jeans for a quilt? Ask the club’s inventory scouts where to go to find what you need. They take note of what’s available at the region’s re-sale shops, antique stores, flea markets—including places like Goodwill and Habitat for Humanity’s Re-Store—and keep tabs on what’s available at Lowes, Home Depot, Hobby Lobby and more.

Store your stuff.  Because some projects take longer than a day, you get storage space for the materials and tools you’re using.

Receive personalized assistance. Never used a drill press before? What’s the difference between a jpeg file and a tiff file? No worries! One of the club’s helpers will answer your question or show you how to do something. Just raise your hand or go to the big help desk in the middle of the club.

Enroll in skill and project workshops.  Want to learn a particular skill—maybe pottery or Adobe photoshop or quilting or building a root cellar? Enroll in one of dozens of hands-on classes taught by club helpers or other craftsmen and women from the community.

Reserve refrigeration, freezer and root cellar storage.  Lots of people want to ‘put up’—that is, can, dry, freeze or otherwise store—their own food, much of which comes from a garden or is bought in bulk at a farmer’s market. But not everybody can afford the cost of, or spare the room for, an extra frig or freezer. Solution? Use the club’s cold storage facilities. Or reserve some root cellar space.

Get help in fundraising.  Fundraising? Because sometimes people will have a big project—say, building a community garden with raised beds and a drip irrigation system—and need extra cash to finance the project. The club will help advertise your need with other club members, through neighborhood listserves, and with a project description and Paypal account on the club’s Web site

Community talent, community pay-back

“The community’s own talent pool will be key to the success of the club,” Rowe says. “DIY Factory will recruit the best local talent to help our membership.” According to preliminary plans, the company plans to hire about 25 handy people to work full-time as helpers or inventory scouts, and to contract with 75 more to work on a part-time or an as-needed basis.

Rowe also said the company will collaborate with local non-profit agencies and other donors to create scholarship programs to cover membership fees for low-income people. “We want to make sure everyone in Athens who can benefit from the club and who wants to join can afford to do so,” Rowe says.

Is there demand for this?

“Will people pay to join a DIY club? Rowe muses. “That’s a good question, and it’s why we’re testing this concept in an artsy, progressive, college town. If it won’t work here, it’s not likely to work in many other places.” But Rowe is optimistic both about the likelihood of success in Athens, and in the larger world.

“There are two converging trends now that make a DIY club a plausible business concept,” Rowe explains.

“For one, there’s this huge resurgent interest in crafting, in learning how to cook, how to grow your own food and in generally becoming more self-sufficient, more thrifty. And secondly, people are downsizing. Some are moving back to the city because they realize that the suburban sprawl lifestyle is unsustainable.”

“It’s here—where the DIY mentality meets the advantages (the concentration of people and skills) and limitations (less space for private workshops) of city living—that we think we’ve found our niche.”
_____

* This post is a work of fiction. PDN is the acronym for Pipe Dream News, a fake news service that syndicates (actually, pretends to syndicate) fictional news accounts of people, places, things and happenings that do not exist but would be cool if they did.

Green Thrift Grocery to Open in Athens

By Dan Lorentz

[Here’s a news story I’d like to read one day…]

ATHENS, GA.  (PDN*) — Green Thrift Grocers, Inc., a national franchise specializing in neighborhood grocery stores featuring locally grown produce at discount prices, today announced plans to open a small-format store here.  Company officials said they had acquired a site for a 10,000 square foot store in Boulevard, a largely residential neighborhood just northwest of downtown.

Future site of Green Thrift Grocery

Boosting walkability is part of mission

Green Thrift started in Philadelphia, Pa. in 1999 as a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing fresh, affordable produce into low-income urban neighborhoods not being served by larger grocery stores.

Since then, the mission has broadened—and so has the customer-base.

“We quickly realized that grocery stores don’t just help people get access to food,” explained Darrell Evans, Green Thrift’s founder and chief executive officer. “They can also spark economic activity, perk up property values, and create a more walkable, healthier neighborhood.”

Green Thrift still serves low-income neighborhoods with limited access to fresh foods. But now the organization—which has become a very profitable, for-profit corporation—seeks out what it calls “tipping point” neighborhoods to locate in.

In Green Thrift’s corporate parlance, “tipping point” neighborhoods are compact, well populated mixed income neighborhoods with a strong identity. Typically, they are also already fairly walkable, but require a full-service grocery store to make it possible for residents to take care of most of their daily needs without a car or other transportation.

Once such a neighborhood is identified, Green Thrift works with neighborhood residents, local investors and local farmers to gauge the interest in and the financial feasibility of opening a grocery franchise there. If local interest from residents, investors and farmers is sufficient, Green Thrift will move forward with the project.

“Low-income folks love what our stores bring into the neighborhood, but so do plenty of middle and upper income folks,” Evans said. “And more and more of them are looking for walkable neighborhoods to live in. They also don’t mind the lower prices for locally grown food.”

Neither a Kroger’s nor a hippy co-op

Fresh, locally grown foods sold in season at low prices—that’s the message Green Thrift highlights in its advertising. But customers can also pick up a gallon of non-organic milk or bleach because the stores also offer much of what conventional grocery stores stock, including cheese and deli meats, dry groceries like pasta, spices, sugar bread and other baked goods, wine and beer, frozen foods, cleaning detergents and paper products.

To keep costs down, Green Thrift avoids fancy displays and like other grocery franchises, uses its buying power to leverage lower prices.

The store encourages walking by allowing customers to roll their grocery carts home and have them retrieved by the store. The carts have air-inflated tires and a simple suspension system so they are easy to push and steer in the store’s aisles and on sidewalks and streets.

On average, Green Thrift grocery stores are about 10,000 square feet. Many conventional supermarkets are at least 30,000 feet. More intimate feeling, the small-format Green Thrift stores often evokes memories among older customers of neighborhood groceries from the 1940s and 1950s.

Residents welcoming, says neighborhood leader

“For the most part, people living in the neighborhood are really excited about the Green Thrift store,” said Elliot Mattison, president of the Boulevard Neighborhood Coalition, a group representing more than 250 neighborhood residents.

Daily Groceries Co-op, located near the Boulevard neighborhood, already provides residents with access to fresh, local produce. But because the store is not a full-service grocery and is located just outside of the neighborhoods boundaries on the south side of the very busy multi-lane Prince Av., Mattison said the new Green Thrift store “will do more to really help make Boulevard a truly walkable neighborhood.”

According to Mattison, the location of the store, on the southeastern corner of the intersection of Dubose Av. and Chase St., has some residents concerned about increased traffic on the already busy Chase St. Green Thrift officials downplayed the concerns and pointed out that their stores boost foot-traffic much more than car-traffic. At present, the site is used as a parking lot for medical offices located across the street. A parking garage will be built nearby to accommodate for the lost parking spaces.
_____

* This post is a work of fiction. PDN is the acronym for Pipe Dream News, a fake news service that syndicates (actually, pretends to syndicate) fictional news accounts of people, places, things and happenings that do not exist but would be cool if they did.

The Food Trust’s Super Market campaign inspired parts of this post.