Small Portland Has Crowded Online Scene

“We’re going to tell you something new and fresh,” Christie said of his Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting. “And we don’t mind if you get mad at us.”

Since January 2010, the center’s digital publication, Pine Tree Watchdog, has produced more than 40 investigative stories on subjects such as Maine’s state pension system and Gov. Paul LePage’s follow-through on campaign promises. In less than two years, Christie’s “retirement” project has forged partnerships with 21 Maine newspapers and a radio station; Thompson Reuters began distributing its articles in May.

For all its effort, Pine Tree Watchdog charges nothing from its affiliates, and Christie, the publisher and senior reporter, collects no paycheck.

“It’s important to provide these stories as a public service, at no charge, so we can get a wide distribution,” Christie said.

A sense of purpose guides Christie and other digital media leaders in the Portland area, which, for a market its size, boasts a spate of online outlets thriving in various news avenues. There’s The Portland Press Herald’s PressHerald.com, full of local reporting; Hearst Television Inc.-owned Channel 8’s WMTW.com, with weather, traffic and practical stories; BangorDailyNews.com, sporting “the best coverage of state news and politics,” according to University of Southern Maine professor Matthew Killmeier; and NewMaineTimes.org and TheBollard.com, sharing articulate alternative perspectives.

All these and more occupy a market that ranks 77th in the nation with fewer than 1 million people, a quarter of whom do not have Internet connections at home, according to media research firm Borrell Associates.

Perhaps the most prominent digital player in the state is MaineToday Media, which owns four newspapers, a magazine; and phone, automotive and job directory Web sites. In September, the company’s MaineToday Digital division plans to launch a suite of marketing services aimed at small- and medium-size businesses. It also is in the midst of an ambitious remake of its flagship Web site, MaineToday.com.

“Anyone who’s looking for anything in Maine will be able to find it there,” said Steve Galligan, who took over as MaineToday Digital president in May.

Galligan, a former Boston Globe Media executive, said the new online destination will be “analogous to Boston.com,” The Boston Globe’s popular site. He also compared the forthcoming MaineToday.com to AOL’s hyperlocal Patch.com sites, saying it will feature not only news but also information about food, music and other cultural aspects of life in the Pine Tree State.

While MaineToday.com will continue to serve in-state readers, it will cater to an out-of-state audience, as well, Galligan said. Already, 46% of its traffic originates outside of Maine.

“A lot of our audience is people who are coming here to visit, looking for hotels, kayaking, fishing and restaurants,” Galligan said.

Some of MaineToday.com’s news content will be shared by the company’s newspaper sites, including PressHerald.com, which combines written stories printed in the city’s daily with multimedia complements. A recent article about the $75 million expansion of the Portland International Jetport, for instance, featured a video tour of the facility, led by the airport’s deputy director.

While the paper is working to add video to its text, the mission is reversed at television station Web sites, such as WMTW.com. Frequently, that means publishing stories online that don’t merit inclusion in the ABC affiliate’s daily newscasts.

“The Internet is such a great tool, in that it offers so much more space,” WMTW news director Amy Beveridge said. “You can post all the news of the day, not just the top stories. … So, we put up some stories that just make good clicking material. They’re not necessarily what you need to know.”

The site’s “good clicking material” includes slideshows with names like “The Most Hated Person in America is …” and “Best/Worst Dollar Store Buys.”

But WMTW.com can be serious, too. Its “News 8 Now” webcast is what Beveridge calls a “mini newscast,” a roughly three-minute roundup of the day’s most important bulletins. The station also posts some raw interview footage, which allows viewers who crave more than sound bites to watch longer exchanges with newsmakers.

John Christie launched Pine Tree Watchdog in 2010.

The coverage variety, online and onscreen, appears to be working: In April, the station collected regional Edward R. Murrow awards for best Web site and best newscast.

If WMTW.com is a leader in multiple subject reporting, MPBN.net, the Web site of the Maine Public Broadcasting Network, is a leader in multiple platform reporting. The site melds audio from seven public radio stations, plus National Public Radio; video from five TV stations; and written copy from reporters at every outpost.

MPBN.net also has become a destination for special submissions from freelancers, unique items that most news outlets at the local or state level couldn’t finance. A recent dispatch came from freelance photographer Keith Lane, a graduate of Portland’s Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, who traveled to Cambodia and produced an audio slideshow about a young woman named Sophary, who was training to clear mine fields.