Some interesting things are happening with a local news station here in Salem, Oregon called KATU. They’ve opened up a community area of their website for volunteers to get involved with submitting content to their news organization. I had a chance to talk to a member of their staff on the phone, and I’m quite excited about the entire thing. It’s refreshing to see a big organization embracing technology instead of fighting it, and that appears to be exactly what KATU is doing.
A bit of background for reads who aren’t familiar with Oregon lore. Salem is the capital of Oregon, but Portland is the major metropolitan city, so in terms of news coverage and just about everything else except State legislature and bureaucracy - Salem gets the shaft. Even the office for KATU’s Salem site is located in Portland.
My interest was sparked when I started following @GinoCorridori on Twitter, who is a local coorispondant in Salem for KATU. In other words, he’s the guy that has to stand out in the rain, since it’s probably always going to be raining here in Oregon. In the short time I’ve been following he’s been posting pictures, asking questions, and getting involved. We’ll have to see if the Salemites take notice though.
Submitting content to their community site is a win-win. They get to keep their ear to the ground on the internet, and bloggers get much wanted exposure and another platform to launch their ideas. Content submitted doesn’t have an exclusive copyright, so I can submit content that I write for my own site or other sites. If they decide to pick up an article, it could go to the main KATU website.
I enjoy using Digg and reading Slashdot, but it lacks the locality that makes a lot of things important to us. Even on a great day when there are lots of interesting stories, they might not be very engaging when they’re about far away places. Before this the best Salem had was probably Craigslist Rants, which is often flooded with pure madness and heavily trolled.
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