I tried my hardest to get through the article “A Crazy Idea for Funding Local News: Charge People for It” with an open mind, BUT I couldn’t. For the life of me, I don’t see why someone would pay for local news when we already get it for free? In this class we are being reminded about the power of social media and the way news is spread like wildfire.

Now, I am an individual who already doesn’t watch or read local news, but I can remember a few times when I have scrolled on twitter and found out some local news about my hometown that I probably wouldn’t have seen elsewhere or would have found out about much later than I should have.

Now, I really like the idea proposed in the article of hiring some good journalists and turning them loose on a metropolitan area. I think it would be really interesting to see what those people could come up with. If its one thing I know that news needs to be presented in new and engaging ways to get more people into it like the old times. I just personally feel that no one would really pay for it, (at this point in time anyway). Honestly, I think we have something like this already and it costs nothing.

If you don’t know about Baller Alert, it is a very popular Instagram page with 4.3 million followers. This platform allows for many writers to report on almost anything that’s going on in the country/world from politics to fashion. I always go to this page just to see what interesting things are happening. I think this is a very effective way of doing reporting because it allows people to be as creative as they would like to be.

If there was any suggestion, I would say to have something like that, but instead, break it out into certain states or cities. I think this way the journalist is able to report on things no one is covering and reach an audience quicker.

In the article “How to Define Your Target Market” it says “Given the current state of the economy, having a well-defined target market is more important than ever. No one can afford to target everyone. Small businesses can effectively compete with large companies by targeting a niche market.”

This coincides with the idea being pitched because for something to start off so small you have to know who you are targeting and figure out who is willing to pay for it.

I can guarantee that most people will not want to pay for something like that because it isn’t something they will gravitate to more than they do their current local news coverage.