The News Media Alliance, which represents local news outlets--print, broadcast, and online--has launched a News Impact Project to promote the value of local news publishers.
That comes as the group is trying to get online news aggregators to better compensate them, or compensate them at all, for that high-value content.
NMA argues that local content is vital to communities and that being able to monetize that content is vital to its survival.
Related: NMA Says Facebook Is De Facto News Publishing Regulator
A central feature of the project is a new News Impact Index of stories by alliance members that have had a positive impact on communities. The alliance said that index "provides compelling evidence of the critical role of and need for high-quality local journalism to ensure an informed society."
The stories include ones on speeding ticket fines, mass evictions, tainted drugs, untested sex assault kits, possible false imprisonment, and one that hit close to home--newspapers being trashed in dumpsters rather than delivered.
