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Steve Herrmann

Specialism online


Will small-scale, independent online journalism like Rick Waghorn's website about Norwich City Football Club come to represent a threat to larger news organisations like the BBC?

A graphic of the BBC News websiteI met Rick at a seminar last week about the economics of online journalism organised by POLIS, a joint initiative from the London School of Economics and the London College of Communication. After years as a football reporter and commentator on the Norwich Evening News, he left to set up his own website dedicated entirely to coverage of the city's football club.

He's made a successful business out of it, with a regular readership and a stable of local advertisers gathering around what is in effect his own personal brand.

Can that economic model be replicated across a wider range of subjects - and for news as well as sport?

I'm not sure anyone knows yet, but what he and other specialist journalists and some bloggers certainly can - and do - provide is absolute focus on the subject in question and a high degree of expertise about it. If they can get readers to recognise this, people will value and maybe pay for it. So when POLIS Director Charlie Beckett quoted me as saying this model could be a threat to larger news organisations, that's why.

The BBC has to be aware of these specialist online news sources and indeed should link to them too, helping our audience find out more about the stories. And it's also going to be more important than ever for us to signpost the authoritative reporting and newsgathering of our own specialist correspondents.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website

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