The Washington Post, well known for its detailed coverage of the White House and global affairs, will introduce a Web site today with news and other information for a rarefied group: people who live in Loudoun County, Va., population 272,000.
The site, LoudounExtra.com, is an experiment in hyperlocal news; it will have church schedules, restaurant menus and real-time high school football scores. The county, in northern Virginia, includes Dulles International Airport and the town of Leesburg.
“There will be stories about things that normally would not make it into the pages of The Washington Post, like mailboxes being knocked down,” said Rob Curley, vice president of product development for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. “It has every Rotary meeting, every Bible study group. It is very local.”
Quick question: Is there money be made in delivering church schedules online in the Facebook era? If I'm a member of Church A, do I really care about what Churches B or C are routinely up to?
If Loudon County has 272,000 people, why would a mailbox being knocked down in the far part of the northeast quadrant be of interest to people in the far part of the southeast quadrant?
Is the assumption in hyperlocal journalism that just because it happened locally, it's interesting even if it's routine? I always had the apparently now-obsolescent belief that news was about the exceptional.
Addendum
Publishing 2.0's Scott Karp says that LoudonExtra isn't hyperlocal enough.