Citizen journalism hits the streets

Published May 28, 2005 at midnight

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YourHub.com has been on the Web for all the world to see for about a month.

But this week folks in Douglas County were the first to get a glimpse of what print sections of our new community news Web site look like.

I hope they got as much of a kick out of them as I did.

Our tiny YourHub.com staff produced three 40-page sections - one for Castle Rock, Castle Pines and Franktown, a second for Parker and a third for Highlands Ranch, Lone Tree and Roxborough Park.

To give you some sense of the scale of their accomplishment, that means they put out roughly the same number of pages as the staff of the Rocky Mountain News did for Thursday's regular paper.

The sections were delivered to subscribers of the Rocky and The Denver Post, filled with stories that would have been too local to make either paper in the past. Many of those stories were contributed by neighborhood residents and organizations.

Some of the headlines you might have seen on these citizen stories:

* Indian Park Schoolhouse adopts pioneer remains

* A kiln of Roxborough Park's history will be preserved

* Father, daughter enjoy dance

* Tastebuds satisfied for a good cause

* Woodpeckers cause noise, damage

* Cyclist pedals past MS

* Parker County Festival tickets on sale now

* Wet spring leaves creek full

You get the picture. Local, local news. About people and their daily lives. Stories that give a sense of place, of community.

The YourHub.com slogan might be "If it matters to you, it probably will matter to some of your neighbors."

On June 9 we'll be rolling out similar sections for Arvada, Boulder and Broomfield. And a few weeks later we'll blanket the city of Denver.

By mid-August, we should be pumping out 15 sections a week, delivered to almost 400,000 homes, all largely based on what you and others contribute to our 40 Web sites, one for virtually every community in the seven-county metro area.

YourHub.com is a new kind of newspaper section. And I don't say that lightly. I know you always hear about new this and new that.

But this is truly new. For so many years, large newspapers have had to say no to most people and groups who approach them with stories. We don't have the space to print everything the community would like us to publish. The Internet has changed that picture. We have an unlimited amount of space. Now we can say yes to everybody - or almost everybody - on the Web. And most people now have the tools to share their stories themselves, without us having to be involved.

Then our journalists can take the best of the Web and edit it for weekly newspaper sections.

It would be a mistake to think of YourHub.com as a weekly newspaper, though. That's an old idea. YourHub.com is live, 24 hours a day.

The sites change all through the day as we link to stories about your community from any and all news outlets and as you add stories - any time you like, day or night.

The advertising changes, too.

Let's say you live in Highlands Ranch and you're looking to buy a used crib. You can go on YourHub.com in the morning to see whether there are any for sale. And if you don't find what you want, you can come back that night to see whether the situation has changed.

Online classified ads are free on your local hub, except for real estate, automotive and help wanted.

We know that buying and selling are two of the most important activities for many of us. We also know that most people aren't going to drive from Highlands Ranch to Longmont to buy a crib. But if you can easily find one in your neighborhood, that might be something else, something useful.

So now, with the launch of our print sections, I hope the picture is complete. At YourHub.com you can share stories, photos and opinions, publicize events and sell things, any time you want.

In this job, I hear a lot of complaints about "the media." Well, now you can be the media. That, in the end, is what YourHub.com is all about.

Our job is to help make that happen, online and in print.

You're the journalists now. You get to define what's news. Our job is to help.

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