Over the last several weeks, I’ve heard executives from News Corp, Yahoo, and AOL who all share one thing on their minds:  they are loco for local.  And they all have the same local challenge:  howto get their hands on content all over the map, without having to pay through the nose.
The problem with local publishing is that while strategic interest from the media companies is high, audiences are sub-scale, and monetization is just starting to pay off.  Publishers can’t afford a big investment in a traditional staff for individual online markets that may not be able to afford even a dedicated writer.

Enter creativity.  Just because you can’t pay big bucks doesn’t mean you can’t make a great employment proposition. The Huffington Post, always happy to defy traditional rules, is taking a bold approach.  Their entry into local markets via college workforces offers a number of great ideas in sourcing talent and content in new, creative ways that can attract great contributions who don’t fit the old mold.

• Non-traditional talent. Talent comes in all forms.  If HuffPo can train and nurture the talent, and provide editorial oversight to ensure quality of work, non-traditional talent can be made to be effective.  They won’t be the same as professionals, but that doesn’t mean they won’t create content the audience will value.
• Invest, don’t just pay. Investing is about more than cash payments.  Pay in training, education, support.  Salary pays while you have the job and then it’s done, but real-life experience and resume credentialers pay back for a lifetime.
• Provide high-value, low-cost resources. Get these publications using a Huffington Post-provided platform.  It’s near-zero incremental cost for HuffPo, but a good platform provides a ton of value for the local franchises.
• Make them successful. Huffington Post can provide not only a platform, but assets that students and individual local publications would have a near-impossible time replicating on their own.  Network effects, search engine love, and syndication all come easy to HuffPo and
• Create an opportunity path. Creating a reward system path via their citizen journalism unit can also motivate participants to give their very best to get exclusive access and advancement opportunities.

Bundling enough of these benefits together makes this compelling for students to invest themselves into.  And for HuffPo, all of these offerings are high value/low cost, so they are affordable.

Who will this idea inspire?  I’d love to see some of the more traditional publishing houses and newspapers follow suit with their own creative approach to local.