The recession has devastated US local and regional newspapers. Erica Smith, who runs the site Paper Cuts, counted 15,992 lost newspaper jobs in 2008, 14,783 in 2009 and 2,761 in 2010. So far 166 papers have closed their doors.
And while there has been no shortage of countervailing attempts to build new local news business models, there have been more failures than successes. TBD, a Washington metro area web and TV news service launched by Robert Albritton's Albritton Communications, is the latest bid to reinvent local news.
The industry is paying attention – in part because Albritton has already had one news startup success, the Politico website and newspaper. Launched in 2007, it is making money and recently announced a new premium service. Unlike Politico, though, TBD is not a pure startup: it is married to two TV stations, TBD TV and WJLA.
TBD.com has taken to heart Jeff Jarvis's advice to "Do what you do best and aggregate the rest." Its editorial strategy aims to aggregate existing content while searching for new opportunities in traditional types of news.
"We tried to focus on things other people weren't doing," says Steve Buttry, TBD's director of community engagement. For instance, local political coverage is essential, Buttry adds, but "rather than covering the horse race of the day-to-day campaign, Kevin Robillard, our [politics] reporter, is fact-checking".
Much has been made of hyperlocal strategies with content delivered at a postcode level but TBD's management see it as a regional site with hyperlocal elements. Buttry has 190 bloggers who provide hyperlocal content, and four community hosts who highlight the best posts from the blog network.
TBD has one advantage that most startups only dream of: an ad sales team of 22 who have contacts with major regional advertisers. The site adds location information to all of its content, including network blog posts, so that people can find content related to where they work, live or play. Ultimately, this could open the door to future geo-targeted ads as the site develops.