The Blog

you're being generous when you state "Dougherty also said that for about $35,000 a reporter..." According to his "spreadsheet" for example, the city hall reporter is getting $34,406. And at 34,406 a year, that extra 594 bucks actually means something. let's say the only tax the reporter faced was federal...that's about 16.08% or 6,594...now we're down to 27,812 (i'm not going to include SS or state tax 'cause it gets too scary) 27,812 = about 535 a week ... if they only work 5 days a week, that's 107 dollars a day (never met a decent reporter in my life that only worked 5 days a week, 8 hours a day). so, dougherty thinks assigning a reporter who ultimately ends up pocketing way less than 100 bucks a day is going to be up to the task of covering the wheelings & dealings of big city alderman that spend more than that on lunch? Well, maybe. But I'm not so sure that's a good idea.

@Mike: It was actually me that estimated the insurance costs during the panel, and I think you may have misheard. Libel insurance from an industry leading insurer is $2,000 a year. That's not an estimate -- that's the dollar value of the premium check I'll be cutting next week. We pay around $2,000 a year in other types of insurance -- general liability, worker's comp, etc. That number would surely grow if we expanded in the manner I suggested in the spreadsheet. But it would grow to about $10,000. I don't take offense at the idea that this is "worthy" reporting. It's the core public service mission that newspapers formerly filled, and have now largely abandoned. Calling it "B-list" reporting, is indeed grating. I don't know what could be more important for a news organization than holding local public officials accountable to the public that pays their salaries. If you think of something, let me know. @DeBartolo: The spreadsheet is based on $41,000 a year per reporter. This is the average salary for reporters in the metro area. So, like it or not, that's market. Talented people are working for that amount of money, and less, every day. I know I certainly did for the bulk of my career. And mostly without complaining about it.

I should also mention that we're not aiming to create more content than the Trib or the Sun-Times. We're aiming to create more local, public-affairs content. Our readers get their international news from cnn.com and the bbc, and similar sites for national affairs. What's at risk with the waning of the Chicago papers is local news. Today the Trib ran eight local stories. We'll run the same number tomorrow with a staff of four and a couple of freelancers and volunteer neighborhood reporters. With a staff of 26, 18 of them reporters, we'd publish between 10 and 14 local stories a day -- a local report far more robust than anything produced today. It's also worth noting that, while I'm happy to take credit for this idea, it's not particularly new or inventive. The plan I've proposed is industry standard for covering local news at well regarded regional papers, including several I've worked for.

my inexcusable error geoff...duly noted...41K it is...i think i had too many tax windows open while doing the math. in any event, i don't think the extra $6,594 challenges my point very much. 41K may be the average salary for reporters in the metro area, just as 46K is reportedly the average salary for chicago's septic tank inspectors, but in both cases i think it's still too little pay to dig through all of the shit that needs digging through.

I can't argue the idea that reporters are paid far less than their societal value would merit. But it's been that way for decades, and my guess is that it will continue to be that way for decades to come, as it will for septic tank inspectors, teachers, migrant farm workers, rent-a-cops... you get the idea. The question we're trying to answer is: How much does it cost to cover Chicago diligently? Not: How can we find a way to pay all journalists $75k a year and give them bon-bons and a pillow-fluffing at night?

to all/for your consideration - the "Benjamin Thomas journalism business model" as we all know, sex sells; so does crime ..."And the two go quite well together," says Ben. http://www.hydeparkmedia.com/benthomas.html when i wrote this feature for the trib 20 yrs ago (next month), my tongue was planted firmly in my cheek ... now, i'm not so sure old ben wasn't just ahead of his time in terms of what a viable newspaper today needs to look like.

@ geoff - you can keep the bon-bons & i'll fluff my own pillow...i don't think it's too much to ask an employer, societal do-gooder or not, for a sufficient salary on which he/she can live in a decent home, raise a couple of kids, put 'em through college & maybe take a vacation every now & then. but no argument on the historic lack of decent pay, yet it's terrifying to me you new media guys think it's ok to keep that tradition alive on-line.

DeBartolo, you also forgot the personal exemption and standard deduction. That knocks more than $9,000 off taxable income. Your takehome pay estimate wasn't very close. Still not great ... I also want to chime in and agree with Geoff that we're talking about the gap in local and state reporting. The problem for us citizens and newsreaders is much smaller than saving the entire Tribune or Sun-Times. (If I set aside my sympathy for people whose jobs are on the block.) We have a multitude of options for national and international news, for celebrity gossip, even for sudoku.

Here I was thinking that "worthy" sounded a little arch and condescending while "B-list" simply acknowledged that these stories the Daily News specializes in aren't the kind that top page one and make papers sell like hot cakes. But however Dougherty prefers to describe these stories, he's right that they're necessary. We all lose when nobody covers them. If the Daily News is paying only $2,000 a year in libel insurance it's paying vastly less than the industry and I'm sure vastly less than it will be paying after it's expanded and has had its first libel suit. What I'm not clear about is how an online paper focused strictly on "local, public-affairs content" will attract readers without the sweetening of sports, features, comics, etc. What will command the readers' loyalty if visits to the site feels simply dutiful because the site is worthy? I know I'm measuring online news sites by the traditional packaging of printed news. Is that wrong?

I'm not sure why a journalism startup that's doing original local reporting would want to do more than cover one topic. For this reason, you'd need even less than $2 million. Get six guys, 3 reporters, 1 editor, a programmer and a designer. Pick a niche. The Cubs. City Hall. Small business. Just one of them. Go to town. Give away 90% of your reporting for free on your site, aggressively promote it to larger sites looking for neat stuff to link to and then charge a heavy premium for that 10% of insider-y analysis and super premium stuff. Whatever you publish though, it has to solve a problem for a specific group or community of people. It must be useful in order for it to be adopted and for its user base to grow. When we started the Windy Citizen almost 10 months ago now, we were publishing 20 blogs on local topics, original reporting, all sorts of stuff. It was all over the place...which meant that we weren't making any one person happy, much less any community of people. So we trimmed and trimmed and trimmed until right now we're just giving people a place to rate, share and comment on the news. And that's working. Later we can do more stuff, but you've got to start by solving one specific problem. Michael, it was great to meet you. I apologize to those I may have offended with my tone during the town hall. As soon as I stood up my composure ebbed away and I let my emotions get the better of me.

I'm a longtime print journalist who is *not* fearing the move to online. I'm with you, Geoff -- I understand that what some say is stealing, others see as driving traffic and helping. However, as someone who's worked in traditional city rooms for 20+ years, I gotta say these low-cost estimates are way off. The commenter asking how you'd raise a family on $41,000 (pre-tax) is right. The Sun-Times breaks stories like the Burris fiasco by having statehouse and federal courts reporters who' ve spent years building sources and honing their skills. Same with the other investigative reporters in town. Beat reporters too. It's one thing to have recent grads covering City News-type breaking news (and maybe having to work a second job to pay their rent) -- something else to have seasoned journalists doing the kind of in-depth reporting that everyone's worried about losing. My first job paid $18K and I worked my tail off ... but it took years of being a reporter before I had the wisdom to really be effective. And no, I don't have anyone fluffing my pillows, even now. :-) Anyway -- I love the ideas, but I think you need to be more realistic about the money.

@ ryanwc: forgive me - haven't done my own taxes in at least 10 years. Glad you got the point nonetheless. only question i have today is anyone actually working on setting up round 2? when i asked davis on sunday when it might be held, he replied when someone else organizes it. i'd be interested in buying the T-shirt concession...and i'm only half kidding...while a grad student in '79, i nearly paid my tuition by selling "i got a peek of the pope" buttons in grant park...given the suggested numbers of what on-line work is worth, moving forward, i might need the cash.

After the session, I spoke with multiple people about organizing a Chicago news-related event structured like a Bar Camp, which is a network of open, participant-led conferences. Basically, everyone agrees to show up and people sign up to lead discussions on topics they're interested in or familiar with. People then branch off and attend whichever proposed sessions sound interesting. Some sessions might pull 20 people while others garner just a handful. It's very loose and free-form, but some really interesting discussions and connections can come out of the format. Also, using this format would attract many more technologists and entrepreneurs. If anyone's interested in a Chicago News/Journalism Bar Camp like this, perhaps a month or so from now, you can drop me a note at windycitizen at gmail.com and we can pipe you into the conversation we're having about it.

I'm with Brad @ Windy Citizen. Pick a worthy niche that hasn't been covered to death, or covered badly. Add some reporters, copy editors, web folks. You don't need an office, really.

And Geoff expects to generate $2 million in revenue by covering courts and board meetings? Ha! What's he going to do once the grants run out? "For the price of [the Olympic] bid, you could fund a great Chicago news organization for 25 years." Yes ... if you expect your army of reporters to be content making $41,000 in 2035. Good luck with that.

I see that spreadsheet lists only two photographers/videographers. Are reporters going to be taking their own pictures, or is every story just going to be text? Keep in mind, too, that all of this content is going to be posted and managed by one web developer. Good freaking luck. I'm not arguing that an online only newspaper couldn't be effective, just that it's naive to pretend that it would be cheap.

Why is everyone so negative about Geoff's proposals? They are a lot more intelligent than anything I've seen, heard or read from the major newspaper companies. Let's try something different - clearly, the current path that newspapers are on isn't working! $41,000 a year for a reporter is a lot more than most freelancers make. And it's a hell of a lot better than unemployment.

Geoff! Remember me? We worked together in St. Pete in the late 1990's when we were both suburban bureau reporters? Partied together many a Friday night? I love your work. I love the Chi-Town! Keep it up. But ... You wrote: "I know I certainly [made $41k] for the bulk of my career. And mostly without complaining about it." Come on! --- We used to bitch about our lousy pay constantly! Con. Stant. Ly! Not only that, the types of stories you are now promoting as the key to success -- Metropolitan Water Reclamation District board meeting, for example -- are the exact stories we HATED covering back in the day. I recall your disdain at covering your beat -- Port Richey city council -- because its budget was *only* $800k. I distinctly recall one conversation during which you said something to the effect of: "Even if I uncovered somebody stealing 10 percent of the budget it'd only be $80k so what's the point?" It's good to see now that you've abandoned that line of thinking. Keep up the recent good work. -- Kent

well, up until fischer chimmed in i was about to say this is starting to sound a lot like an old mickey rooney movie -- hey kids, we can hold the show in my uncles's barn, sell our own tickets, make our own costumes & still raise enough to save the school band - are ya with me ... now it's sounding more like the bowery boys ... if you really want to cover city hall, you need a fran spielman, cause even though city hall is a building, it's the people you need to know & how they interact & that takes time as well as a particular talent & time is money & the particular talent i don't think you can't buy for 41K anyway so i'll drop it...but i wish you good luck with the show. i'm also up for anything w/ Bar Camp in the title.

Here's the thing about how much it costs to run a newsroom: It's not a matter of opinion. It's a collection of facts and math. The folks arguing that it takes more than $2 million a year are, with all due respect, wrong. I've spent the majority of my 17-year journalism career working in newsrooms that focused on producing high-quality local and regional coverage. I know how many reporters worked in those newsrooms, what they covered and how much money they made. Those newsrooms employed the number of reporters shown in the spreadsheet, to cover the stuff listed, for the salaries I've provided. Those are the facts. If you don't believe me, feel free to call the city desk at any well-regarded local or regional newspaper. Try the Concord Monitor, the Bergen Record and the St. Pete Times for starters. Ask them how many reporters write for their city section, what they cover and what the salary range is. What you'll find is pretty much the same information that's in the now-infamous spreadsheet. If you're suggesting otherwise without making the calls, you're needlessly discouraging people who might think about starting a newsroom like the one I've described, and discouraging folks who might fund one, too. Now that we've dispensed with that, I should add that I think many of us are missing the forest for the trees. Even if our budget is off by a factor of three, we're talking about a total of less than $6 million. If we decide to pay reporters $80k instead of $40k, the budget's $4 million. If we pay reporters $60k and add in Miner's $2 million libel insurance policy, the total's $5 million. And so on. The point is that we can secure quality local news coverage in Chicago (or any other city) for what amounts to pocket change for foundations, philanthropists and investors. It's silly to argue about whether this is possible, because it clearly is. We should be arguing about how to get it done, and how many newsrooms like this Chicago needs. Onward to address the whining about salaries. Our current pay scale is lower than $41k/year, and we have no problems attracting and keeping fantastically talented journalists. Voice your opinions all you want, but I actually run a newsroom that recruits, hires and pays reporters. I know how much it costs and what we get for the money. Unless you can claim the same experience, you're arguing at a distinct disadvantage. @Kent: Great to hear from you. When I talk about great local news coverage, I'm really talking about the Pasco Times. Drop me an e-mail sometime. @Pvt. McCormick: I don't think any of us knows what we'll be doing in 2025. The point of the Olympics comparison wasn't to forecast our payroll out for a quarter of a century. But you probably know that. In terms of funding, there's no magic -- we're building a business that's funded on the same model as Chicago Public Radio, NPR, and a jillion other nonprofits. Some audience support, some corporate sponsorships, some foundation grants. It works. Pretending it doesn't is a waste of air. @Good luck: Apologies, but your feeble objections won't doom us either. We don't have a full-time web developer now, and don't expect to have one anytime soon. Anyone with half a brain can install and skin Wordpress to function quite well as a news website for free. It's pretty common for reporters to shoot photo and video, and ours certainly do. @Brad: I agree with niche -- that's the whole point of what we do, and we've gradually been tightening in around our core -- public affairs reporting.

This is one of the more fascinating debates I've read in a while. But I'm wondering where the reader/viewer/end user fits in? Can we address something that Miner brought up earlier: The quality of the report. Most of this relates to the business model, but how on earth can a website survive by using(abusing?) newbie journalists who only cover the local ins and outs of government? Seems like a boring publication that no reader would pay to support, nor would any advertiser get behind. Don't we need voice, perspective, something that makes readers remember what they read. Don't we need seasoned writers and reporters with chops, covering interesting things. Aren't we forgetting the audience here, or underestimating their taste for quality writing and reporting? Once the grants run out, will people really want to support an endeavor that only gives them the stuff that people have, for years, skipped over in newspapers?

@what about the reader, Interesting points. I wonder what you believe to the median age of a Chicago Tribune reporter, or someone at the S-T. I wonder what the reality is. My guess is the media is lower than you suspect but I could be wrong of course.

Here's a question for Geoff if he's still reading about the other side of the equation. Aiming for revenue of $3 million (to pay a bit more, cover unexpected expenses or make a bit of profit), do you think it's more realistic to do it through advertising (say, 12 million pages view per month at a $20 cpm) or subscription (say, $5 a month from 50,000 readers)?

I'm an aspiring reporter and I'd do a happy dance to be paid $41K a year. Maybe my expectations have been unnaturally lowered because of the economy, but hey -- I'm 21 years old. I don't have a family. I can pay like $400 in rent every month and be happy as a clam in Chicago on 41K. I would hope the pay would get better as I get older and need to raise a family and stuff, but if Geoff wants to hire young reporters with moxie and shit, I'm sure he'd have many clamoring at the gates. I think all you oldsters overestimate us. We're willing to work for very little; it's that or freelancing or, gag, advertising.

Chris K, According to Quantcast, ChicagoTribune.com does about 12 million visits a month. If you assume the average person is checking out 2.3 pages per visit (about normal for a news site) then a site doing 12 million pageviews/month would be about half as popular as the top site in the city. I find it highly unlikely that a startup could get to that point for a while, especially one focused on local news. This would never be the most popular site in the city. Which is why you'd need some premium products that you can sell at a fair but premium price...like a daily fax with insider info...

Thanks, Brad. I've worked for newspaper sites in smaller markets, and I've got to agree that both the page view and subscriber numbers I threw out would be aggressive. BUT... I think Geoff makes good points in challenging cost assumptions, and wondered if he had similar challenges to conventional wisdom on revenue as well.

Geoff -- I'm dying to know what the page views are for Metropolitan Water Reclamation District board meetings. C'mon. Papers don't cover those because no one reads them. And if some issue emerges from one of those meetings that does have widespread appeal, it is picked up within days and analyzed to death.

The thing to remember with traditional "meeting" stories is that eventually all these organizations will be publishing their minutes on EveryBlock.com, which might not be AS good as having a reporter there...but is good enough 90% of the time, for the reasons that Old Bill Byrne points out. @Chris K, I also think it's great for Geoff to be challenging the belief on cost structure. Among hackers, there's a lot of talk about how to hack different industries. Example: Google has a prize for anyone who can find a new way to get to the moon. Here's a great discussion about how to "hack it" and potentially get there for under a million dollars: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=442544 We need more conversations like that, about how to hack a newspaper rather than how to replicate what already exists. Starting a newspaper is kind of a bad idea. Starting something that does some of the same things as a newspaper without doing the bad ones is a great idea.

It's absurd to criticize Dougherty's claims based on the current Daily News site. Anyone who's skeptical about the idea that a barebones staff can do serious, A-list civic watchdog reporting should take a look look at the Voice of San Diego. With 11 journalists and a staff of $825k, its investigations have gotten city agency heads fired and exposed the chief of police as a liar. Here's just one of many articles about them, from the LA Times: http://tinyurl.com/cr5ed5. Let the bloggers and entrepreneurs and glossy magazines take care of the culture, sports, sex, lifestyle, comics, and the rest. What's needed is an organization (or several) that can provide crucial state and local news to citizens who want to stay informed. What Dougherty is talking about is 100% realistic. The only question is whether he can hire the right personnel and manage/edit them into realizing their potential.

Sorry, Geoff, but the only folks who are going to work for $35K a year are kids right out of college looking for something interesting to do before heading to law school and folks with an independent source of wealth (maybe a rich spouse? a trust fund?). Very few people with actual brains are going to think much of making a career of a $35K job. They are going to go to med school, law school, what have you. In the end, money matters in that you have to be able to envision yourself raising a family on the salary, retiring on that salary, and sending your kids to school on that salary. And doing it all comfortably, though not necessarily lavishly. So good luck finding seasoned, talented folks willing to bust their butts for decades on $35K a year. Good luck with that.

It strikes me as a perfect project for an online journalism class at, say, Columbia, to do a thorough, independent look at all the numbers related to Chi-Town Daily News -- the money as well as the granular details on the audience metrics. Who is writing? Who is reading? What are they reading? Who is supporting the site for how much and why? Objective, independent answers to these questions strike me as potentially useful things to have to move this conversation forward; ditto with similar data from bigger commercial media sites like chicagotribune.com One hurdle in these discussions is that most of the participants speak from a position of ignorance or self-interest -- in many cases both. This turns comical much of the thundering self-righteousness and breezy self assurance we see in so many online and meatspace conversations on this topic. (I admit to my share of ignorance and self-interest, by the way.)

Zorn says most of us are speaking from positions of ignorance and self interest? Did I read that right? I was baffled by that post until I thought for a minute and remembered that one of the things that has killed mainstream media is arrogance. That they KNOW what they're doing; the rest of us don't. Despite all the layoffs, bankruptcy, etc, looks like that Achilles heel won't go away.

Dear Geoff, While what you're doing is a fine endeavor, it's not great journalism. I've been reading your site for a while now, and it's not close to matching your constant hype. You have to know that. Even if you could increase your ranks, there's no future in paying $35,000 a year; in fact, you're contributing to the demise of quality journalism here by insisting -- loudly and consistently -- that this amount is adequate. Chicago needs reporters with institutional memory -- they know where the bodies are buried. For $35,000, you're getting people who are learning on the job, their first job. Take it from someone who has run newsrooms: There is a place for young reporters. You can teach young reporters -- their energy makes up for a lot of deficiencies -- but they're still young reporters. They miss stuff, a lot of stuff.

@ zorn ... yes, there's plenty of ignorance & self interest & i'd say there's much more of it to come...as for admitting your share, no need to piss in the wind - that's why people go on-line; they want to be heard. & now that the www has wiped out middle men everywhere & the professional gatekeepers are losing their gates, this fundamental shift of power is causing "professional" journalism to face the fact it's been a "trade" all along; critically important, as is plumbing, but a trade nonetheless. the institutions that fostered the professional allusion are now crumbling or adapting, while the new tools of the trade are there for the taking & would-be gatekeepers are scrambling for ads/grants ... this is going to be a long process. i think self interest can be expected & understood when people's thoughts turn to getting ahead and/or survival & pointing it out, i guess, is one way of moving the conversion along. so, too, i think is your call for the numbers. speaking of survival, i'm trying to remember how to link

& for some reason didn't work

@zorn, what? I'm baffled by your bafflement. I'm not exempting myself or my big media brethren from the observation that a great deal of ignorance (in the more neutral sense of not knowing important facts and being unable accurately to predict the future) and self-interest infect this discussion/debate. @debartolo -- I think you're wrong to see journalism as a craft, like plumbing. At some basic level, yes, it can resemble stenography. But look at the work of, say, John Conroy, whose creativity, insight and dogged hard work resulted in exposes that really moved the ball forward. He's out of a job now due to these market realities that don't, now, fund that kind of work adequately. I'd think that calls for more regretful tone than what I'm hearing from you and some others on this thread.

@zorn ... i didn't say craft, i said trade...perhaps i should have said skilled trade but i thought that obvious. as for heartfelt regrets & nobel laments, mine are many, began long ago & felt deeply. so, forgive me right now if i prefer to look ahead.

Glad to see this is still going. It's good to criticize what Geoff's team is doing. I think Eric Zorn's suggestion of a top-to-bottom assessment is a great idea for a j-school to tackle. Lots to be learned there. But like Ryan says, the ChiTown is but one of a handful of original reporting endeavors out there, and taken as a whole, interesting things are being done in the space. I also want to ask people in this conversation to really, truly consider getting active in either your own crazy web idea or someone else's. A prominent local startup publisher and I often joke about our friends who tell us to let them know when we start making a lot of money so they can come work with us. The problem is, when (if) we "figure it out" we won't be looking for people to work with us, we'll be looking for people to work for us. So if you're really passionate and interested in the things being discussed here and elsewhere in the wake of the townhall meeting, do think about taking action on that one idea you keep thinking about. Waiting until the dust clears, waiting until Geoff solves all the staffing and funding problems before you'll work with him (for example), just means you miss all the fun.

I would second much of what Brad says here, at least insofar as he's saying keep an open mind, chase your dreams but don't ignore the facts and don't vilify those whose concepts/plans/practices don't dovetail with yours. Some of the high-temperature rhetoric on this seems unproductive, at best. I like to think we have considerable common ground -- a belief that more news, information and informed commentary is good, freely available is ideal and sustainable levels of compensation for those who do the gathering, the filtering and presentation. Journalism should be a good career path with competitive salaries so bright, talented people don't have bail out when it's time to buy a house, raise kids, send kids to college and so on. How do we get there/stay there? I don't pretend to have all or even necessarily any of the answers. But, like Brad, I'm interested in a mutually respectful discussion of what those answers might be.

high-temperature rhetoric seemed in order; i felt my position misstated in order for you to make a point. but i'm all for mutual respect.

I'm falling behind in my snappy retorts here. Work intervenes. But I'll try to hit a few of the highlights. @Chris K: I think the smart way would be to try both of those options and see which works for the organization in question. It's certainly doable either way. @Old Bill Byrne: Readership for any one story varies wildly, depending on factors that we can't pretend to understand. Generally, though, our site traffic is substantial enough to make us believe there's a strong audience demand for public affairs reporting. We served 50,000 unique visitors last month. That's up 3x from the same month last year, and we're confident we'll hit 150,000 visitors by the end of this year. @Brad: Reading the minutes of a meeting is not the same as having a reporter cull through the chaff, pull out the important stuff, ask tough questions of the government officials and then interview non-government sources about what happened and what the impact is. Agendas and minutes are important, but so is reporting. It's unfortunate that the people making things happen in this space are often the target of ill-informed criticism. But it's a scary time for a lot of people in journalism, and fear breeds contempt. Not much to be done about it. @Chicago reporter: As I said previously, unless you're actually running a newsroom and meeting a payroll, I know far more about this than you do. We get great talent for less than $41k a year. I'm going to stop responding to this particular thread, because you're arguing that the world is flat. It's not. The end. @Jimmy Olsen: One of the difficult things about running our organization is that very few people recognize it for what it is -- a work in progress. We have a budget of $500k this year. Dollar for dollar, I'll put our performance up against any news organization in the country. We just hired our first full-time staffers last month. Our report gets better every day, and once we have a month or two to get the new folks set up on their beats, I think you'll see an incredibly strong news report on our site. In some cases, that's already happening. We beat the other news orgs in Chicago on a daily basis on important public affairs stories. There are obviously costs and benefits to hiring experienced reporters and those with less time under their belts. But the fact is that local news operations in this country have traditionally been staffed with reporters with 0-5 years of experience. They do a good job with appropriate coaching and training, and we're able to provide that for them. It's also worth noting that the salaries in the spreadsheet are averages. Clearly we won't pay every reporter $41,000. We'll hire some enthusiastic newbies for under $30k, and some vets for over $50k. They'll help the younger folks, and it'll average out to $41k. @Zorn: I agree all this is worth further study. Regarding self interest, if I'm wrong about this I'm almost certainly out of a job. I'm the guy with my head on the block, so you can bet I'm looking at our business plan every day to make sure it's grounded in reality.

@Geoff, I agree with you. Clearly one is better than the other. But I think getting the minutes online somewhere is good enough for enough people that we'll see even fewer papers covering meetings as things progress. Also, consider that a programmer could convert those posted minutes into a format that turns all proper nouns in them (e.g. "$44,000 budget increase") into click-able links that lead to a dynamically generated page of information culled from the web explaining what that number means. Sure, it sounds goofy, but it's not so far off. We're kind of doing it on the Windy Citizen's new Twitter Tracker for the Illinois Special election. http://election.windycitizen.com It analyzes all tweets that mention any of the frontrunners. When we find tweets with links in them, we analyze them with some black magic and yank out prominent quotes and keywords to give users the gist of what's being said. I'm not sure we nailed the implementation, but it's still pretty interesting. Something like this could be done with meeting minutes to make them explorable hypertext documents. Is this as good as having a reporter on the scene? No way. But is it good enough and will it save $$$ in the long run? Maybe.

@Brad: I think this is a great idea, just not one that should replace reporting. If you rely only on the government agency's account of a meeting, you've pretty much eliminated any reason for the First Amendment to exist.

This conversation seems to be winding down. I link to it here http://tr.im/gKbA where there's another lengthy interchange on this topic and where I respectfully -- in most cases -- challenge the would-be consultants to be specific and shows results rather than issue their smug broadsides.

surprised no one mentioned the deal hearst just cut with helium for content ... perhaps a locally formed & somewhat expanded helium-type operation (could call it heliox, a mixture of helium and oxygen often used in ER rooms) could cut a deal with the colonel and/or what's left of the sun-times, etc...not a solution, but perhaps a step in the right direction...i realize the devil would be in the details, but... http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2009/02/23/daily25.html

European e-Inclusion Awards 2008 winner nopolanews.fi offers very, very local "news". In 3.5 years ordinary men and women, boys and girls from ages 10 up to 80´s have written nearly 4000 articles. All volunteers. In NopolaNews there is also webradio and now webTV (also IP-TV channel). More information in English www.e-inclusionawards.eu , www.epractice.eu (search NopolaNews) and how it works www.mediacabinet.fi/nopolanews. And of course www.nopolanews.fi Here are the comments from UK film crew: http://www.nopolanews.fi/fin/etusivu/index.php?selectedNumber=102&article=4648&teema=32&id2=62