Charting A Locally Owned, For-Profit Future For Community News

For those of a certain age, perusing the ads posted at The Batavian, the for-profit news site in Batavia, New York, can seem a lot like flipping through the pages of a weekly community newspaper a generation or two ago.

Which is to say there are a lot of ads — more than 140, every single one of them on the home page, a practice that publisher Howard Owens believes is more effective than rotating them in and out. There are ads for funeral homes and pizza shops. For accountants and tattoo parlors. For auto repair centers and ice cream stands. For bars and baseball (the minor-league Batavia Muckdogs).

The success of The Batavian matters to the future of local journalism. In my book The Wired City: Reimagining Journalism and Civic Life in the Post-Newspaper Age, I devote most of my attention to the New Haven Independent, a nonprofit site that subsists on grant money, donations, and sponsorships. At this early stage of online news, nonprofits like the Independent are often able to raise more money more quickly than for-profits. [...]