“Local news is not dying, it's evolving” states Michael Shapiro of TAPinto.  There are thousands of towns that have no local newspaper or local news site.  What's replacing them are Facebook groups and forums and the equivalent filled with misinformation, disinformation, and rumors.  Michael believes that this is undermining our democracy and causing a lot of problems throughout the whole country. The solution is to create a sustainable, scalable model for local news to serve every single town in the country.

For Michael, the key is creating a network of individually owned and operated local news sites where they can share content with each other seamlessly. They can sell advertising for each other seamlessly. Advertisers, whether local, regional, or national, have one point of contact that they need to deal with who can help them market across the country.

“You can create a profitable local news site or even a mini network of local news sites and have high return on investment with little overhead”, observes Michael. You want people coming back to your site every single day. You do that by providing original local news content that they can't get anywhere else, and doing it every single day for the residents of your town or your area.

Show highlights

02:15 Local news is a scalable business but it must be objective

02:56 What is local news?

04:34 Church vs. State in today's local news environment

06:15 What does the local news business model of the future look like?

07:54 The economics of the local news business

11:42 Learn about Michael Shapiro on his and TAPinto's story. Email Michael at mshapiro@tapinto.net or call him at +1.908.370.1158.

Connect with Jay

Email Jay at jay.kingley@centricityb2b.com.

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