When Community Residents Commit 'Random Acts Of Journalism.'.

The article focuses on hyperlocal news Web sites created by citizens to provide information to communities and social networks whose size prevents them from being covered by traditional mass news media. The Web sites serve communities ranging in size from Dutton, Montana, population 375, to teenagers living in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The sites examined were founded in part thanks to grants from the Knight Foundation and the University of Maryland journalism school. The organizers of the sites are surveyed, and almost all are highly positive about the experience and optimistic about the future success of the Web sites. Costs of the projects are very low, so the organizers do not rate them though conventional business metrics. Most do wish to generate enough revenue to be able to pay their contributing reporters.