Now that I’m in the thick of researching citizen journalism for a project I’m working on, I’m realizing how much harder the local metro newspapers will have to work to offer news and information that communities and neighbourhoods care about. How do newspapers gain relevance in the community? It won’t be enough to offer local markets aggregated articles and information. It won’t be enough to offer a list of editor-driven topics with the hope that citizens will contribute content.  Other than stories, pictures and videos – can the newspaper offer readers relevant community information?

As it turns out, a friend of the family happens to work for a community newspaper in Toronto. Her little newspaper, which is actually called, “The Little Paper” is geared towards young families in urban Toronto.  It offers information about community events, activities and stories and it does so from a parent’s point of view. The content is highly targeted and more importantly, highly relevant. They do a great job of making parents in the community feel comfortable enough to be avid readers and contributors.  This is a point of view that continues to elude most metro newspapers.

The metro dailies will need to drastically change their approach to hyper-local content if they have any hope of surviving the inevitable shift from print to online. The daily metro must become an extremely well-informed citizen. This is not a role that journalists are likely to take on. It will require a fundamental change to the newsroom process and citizen-journalist resources that need to be installed in urban and sub-urban centers alike.

I think the newspapers can still transform themselves into a valuable online product.  They already have the urban stories, national and world news. If they can find a way to offer all of the usual within a collaborative news platform that is relevant to the community, they may survive this next step in media evolution.