Hard News, Events Drive Independent

Bass launched the Independent through the Online Journalism Project, a 501C(3) that he started to build news Web sites in local markets on an NPR-model featuring quality, non-partisan and donor-funded reporting. When he isn’t acting as a fiscal agent and trainer for upstart sites in the region like VtDigger.org or sister sites (the Valley Independent Sentinel, the Connecticut Health I-Team), he’s leading the Independent down ever-expanding pathways toward user interaction.

“We’ve gone from the information age to the too much information age,” he said. “If there’s too much that you have to wade through, how are you going to wade through in a meaningful way and bring people to participate so you have discussions, not just noise?”

Bass thinks he may have found the answer in a series of Independent-sponsored discussions that stem from the site’s content, bringing newsmakers together on panels in public forums with a live audience while also streaming the event live. At the same time, journalists lead a real-time chat that follows the panel, giving readers a chance to interact as the event unfolds.

The events are often carried in partnership with other area media, including the local NBC and ABC affiliates, Connecticut Public Radio and the New Haven Register, the city’s daily. A recent example featured author and education reform advocate Diane Ravitch talking with area students, teachers and administrators weighing in on her book The Death and Life of the Great American School System with an anchor from the WTNH, a LIN-owned station, moderating.

Bass said his readers, many who are from the Yale community, favor hard news over soft features. “If we post a story about a celebrity, our traffic doesn’t go up,” he said, “but if we post about urban renewal or bicycles versus cars, our traffic spikes.” He offered a snapshot of the Independent’s vital stats.

 

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Launched: 2005

Updates: Five times weekly, occasionally Sundays

Monthly unique visitors (average): 180,000 according to Google Analytics; Bass believes it’s closer to 30,000-40,000

Mobile platform: In development

Content focus: Local news, politics, criminal justice, neighborhood news, business, school reform and public education

Geographic focus: New Haven and neighboring towns

Target demographic: “Someone who cares about New Haven -- lives here, works here, plays here.”

Annual operating budget: $575,000

Membership: No membership system

Editorial staff: 9

Most popular features: Cop of the Week, school reform and City Hall coverage, political Truth o’Meter (“We cover a campaign development and subject it to the truth test”), neighborhood coverage

Primary digital competition: New Haven Register -- “although we’re friends with them; there’s so much to report and so little staffing left at legacy news organizations.”

What distinguishes the New Haven Independent from its digital competition: “We’re completely local and very professional. Our niche is that we cover New Haven.”

What’s next: Developing a model bilingual newsroom with La Voz Hispana, a media partner with whom the Independent shares office space, “where the reporters and editors work together every day,” “And we want to do more experiments with our conversations -- multimedia, multilevel.” Newsroom expansion, however, isn’t necessarily in the picture: “It’s a ground game. We’re not looking to grow a lot.”