Printcasting in Philly With Temple University

A couple months ago, Printcasting struck a partnership with a visionary hyperlocal journalism site called PhiladelphiaNeighborhoods.com. Managed by the Temple University's Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab, it uses college seniors in Temple's journalism program to report on 25 neighborhoods that are largely ignored by mainstream media, apart from the occasional crime story.

After several years of operation, the lab realized that members of these communities weren't reading the online stories as much as they wanted them to.

The Philly Neighborhoods team discovered Printcasting and began feeding select stories into the system to create targeted magazines. They then took the additional step of printing and distributing a few hundred copies in community centers and libraries.



The initial feedback from the communities has been extremely positive, and also surprising to the Philadelphia Neighborhoods staff. They immediately received calls from people who had read the first editions and wanted to know how they could get more copies. And perhaps even more interesting, some people asked how much additional copies would cost. The Temple staff didn't charge for copies and doesn't intend to, but the mere presence of this question is an indication of the value people place on hyperlocal printed products.

Co-director Christopher Harper also told me that the student-run staff was surprised to get such immediate feedback. Residents knew that Philadelphia Neighborhoods reporters were in their communities shooting videos and making interviews, but he said they didn't quite realize the content was intended for them, rather than simply being about them.

As students Anna Hyclak and Sherri Hospedales wrote about on their blog,

"Because of the lack of news coverage in the area, everyone we talked to while distributing Printcasting newspapers of our work in this class seemed very excited to see finally see the word 'Mantua' in print. Libraries and community centers were eager to display the newspapers, and people we passed kept asking for copies. They would then stop to read the paper right then and there.

We were surprised, because we didn’t expect such a strong and immediate reaction – but I think the people in the neighborhood were even more surprised than we were. Though they’ve seen us around, taking notes and conducting interviews and shooting video, I don’t think they ever realized that we were trying to produce content for them, not for ourselves. Perhaps this will be the start of a new news-gathering tradition in Mantua."

Temple student Rachel Horning (right) shows off the first edition of the Printcasting-powered Hunting Park Times.

My own take on this is that by seeing its own printed newsletter with the name of the community right at the top, residents feel a sense of pride and ownership of the paper, and they more closely relate to the content and brand. The Printcast makes content that was previously available online seem more relevant to where they live.

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Philadelphia Neighborhoods to learn more about their program. Here are co-directors Linn Washington and Christopher Harper proudly displaying their first editions:



The next step, says Harper, is to get Temple students to start creating their own niche publications using content from the individual reporter blogs they're required to keep as part of the program. This has the potential for even more high-touch hyperlocal coverage.

Another piece of promising feedback came from the printer Temple uses. After printing the first editions, the printer asked about how easy Printcasting was to use. "Do you think that this is something other clients might find useful? We often have questions from people who do not have access to designers or design software," wrote the printer. I've heard this from other printers as well, so maybe there's a larger opportunity there.

I can't overstate how thrilled we are about how well things are going with PhiladelphiaNeighborhoods.com. It's exactly the kind of test site we always hoped for. But we're not done yet. We have one more local partnership slot to fill before our grant ends. If you have a good idea for a local community that could benefit from Printcasting, please contact me and let me know how you plan to use it. Your experience and feedback will ultimately feed back into the tools that we open source in June.