As major metropolitan dailies trim editorial staff and publishing platforms become increasingly democratized, media markets are becoming media ecosystems.

Niche and hyperlocal blogs take the place of forgotten newspaper beats and this new network is more open, more communicative and more collaborative. Newspapers once ignored such small-time competition, but many metro dailies are challenging stereotypes of the old-timey newspaper by reaching out to local sites to create a news network.

Each network represents a different experiment in this emerging trend. Here are a few that were presented at the recent ASNE conference and funded by J-Lab.

Miami Herald

The Herald has begun sharing local blog links under a “community news header” on its home page, giving every site a unique avatar to distinguish it from Herald content.

The Herald has undertaken not only a content sharing agreement but an advertising agreement as well. The paper said it standardizes advertisements across the network and targets mom and pop stores. If the individual sites can sell the ads themselves, they keep the cash.

Charlotte Observer 

At ASNE, Steve Gunn, editor for innovative and new products at The Charlotte Observer, said that he found himself in a different position than the Miami and Seattle papers. Charlotte didn’t have the thriving blog ecosystem that other cities had, so they had to help others start their own sites.

“Training was key,” he said.

The paper held hyperlocal panels to help educate the bloggers about reporting and forged a close relationship. The paper would even choose not to cover events because it didn’t want to overlap with its blog network, but used the blogger's coverage in the print edition (see right). One blogger even passed on reporting on a story and offered the scoop to the newspaper because he thought it would be better if a more experienced journalist handled it.

Seattle Times

Home of online-only newspaper the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and a thriving tech hub, The Seattle Times and J-Lab saw Seattle as an ideal place to create a new kind of news ecosystem (see the Times' promo video, above).

“Why try to re-invent the wheel,” the Times wrote in its ASNE handout, “when we can collaborate and still meet the primary goal: to bring readers all of the news no matter who is reporting it?”

The paper said it recognizes the economic reality of its editorial coverage and the growing local blogosphere and saw an opportunity there. While most newspapers are afraid to link to blogs, the Times saw it as proof to its readers that it had a pulse on local news and a firm grasp on what is going on in the city. The newspaper hopes to soon help the local blogs monetize with co-branded events and ad sharing.

Philadelphia

Philadelphia made its first step toward a collaborative news ecosystem on Wednesday with the announcement of J-Lab's recommendations for the city.

After interviewing local news sites for six months, J-Lab, in conjunction with the William Penn Foundation, will launch a central portal page to help aggregate local news sites in order to increase the amount of public affairs reporting in the city.