Charlie Sennott, a former foreign correspondent for the Boston Globe, likes to say he had one of the last great rides in international reporting. He came up as a metro reporter, got sent overseas, and got to do international reporting for the paper he loved. But when he returned to Boston a couple years ago, he learned the Globe was pulling the plug on its international bureaus.

That set off some soul searching that has turned the career journalist into an entrepreneur who wants to reinvent the model for international reporting with GlobalPost.com. The online only international reporting site launches Jan. 12, 2009 and will have 70 correspondents around the world covering international news from an American perspective.

Sound crazy? I thought so. But I changed my mind after listening to Sennott. I saw him speak at the New Business Models for News Summitt in New York a couple of weeks ago (see the video above). And I got to talk with him last week to fill in some of the details of what he has in mind. Sennott is passionate about journalism, and clearly believes he and his partners have a sustainable model for a new international news organization.

“I’ve covered cops, courts, war zones, huge stories,” Sennott said. “I’ve never done a start-up. I’ve never been so busy in my life. But I’ve never been so excited about an opportunity to try to build something.”

You can listen to my interview with Sennott here:

Dan Pacheco, Northwest Voice, John Wilpers, Boston Now; Jarah Euston, Fresno Famous; Dan Barkin, Raleigh News and Observer

Moderator: David Cohn

The panelists talked of their development of user-generated content on the local level, involving those who Barkin called “people formerly known as the audience.”

Pacheco outlined his creation of nine different social networking and user-generated print products, including Northwest Voice. Wilpers spoke of BostonNow, which reverse publishes, putting bloggers into the paper. Euston talked of starting up Modestofamous and Fresno Famous, local entertainment portals which were eventually sold to McClatchy. And Barkin talked of the Observer’s efforts to give readers a voice in the paper by placing their stories and photos posted online on a previously moribund Page 2 in the metro section and getting them to share their experiences for an expose on state traffic courts.

“The newspapers have a tremendous asset to be able to reverse publish,” said Barkin. “If they don’t utilize that asset, they’re really missing a bet. Most still don’t. A very small fraction of newspapers are doing any reverse publishing. They’re not using that significant magnet of printing content to bring people onto their website.”

Of particular note was the Observer’s community site, share.triangle.com, with content from the site feeding a page in the paper. It is also using the community to help with reporting.

“One of the things we did in the middle of our reporting, we invited the public in with a fairly big display on our city and state front,” said Barkin. “We need your help with x, y, and z. Tell us about your experiences in court. Tell us what happens on the highway. Wegot a tremendous response, incorporated the response in a prominent part of the report.”

All of the panelists, especially Wilpers of Boston Now, said they use the user-generated web content to produce print publications, which in turn drive the production of more web content. Wilpers said as many as two-thirds of his bloggers make it in to the paper.

“All of you print, great irony,” said Jarvis.
Debbie Gallant, of baristanet, said she was not interested in a print component.

“Going to paper and having validation in print is something we’re not seeing,” she said. “We’ve exceeded the local newspaper in tems of circulation. We’ve become the game in town. The reporters from The Star-Ledger get real excited when we link to their stuff on baristanet. The digital game can become the game.”

Jarvis asked Jim Willse, managing editor of the Ledger, what his relationship should be with baristanet. “I haven’t got the foggiest idea,” he said, before suggesting there might be some synergy on the revenue side of the ball and with content such as high school sports.

Jarvis suggested a meeting between the two during hallway time later in the afternoon.

Wilpers had the idea of running excerpts from local Boston blogs on both the website and in the actual print newspaper at a Media Giraffe conference. Slowly Wilpers began to introduce himself to local bloggers in Boston and eventually organized two open meetings. The first gathering was somewhat confrontational, filled with critical and suspicious questions: “Will you edit us? Will you pay us?” etc., but by the second meeting bloggers brought constructive ideas and began to give suggestions for the young paper, says Wilpers.

BostonNOW has become the first US print paper to run content from local bloggers, making the paper “fun, intriguing and reflective of the Boston community,” says Wilpers. The first blog post appeared in the paper May 1st, a few weeks after the initial launch. Since then BostonNOW has registered over 500 Boston bloggers to appear on their website and their paper.

Main Goal of BostonNOW: The goal of the company, as a free daily newspaper, is to grab a healthy market share of readers. BostonNOW, like other free metro papers, serves the market of people that want to consume the important news of the day, but can only spare 20 minutes during their daily commute.

But BostonNOW is also a laboratory to test how a community can be involved in the creation of a print product. That includes everything from the articles that the paper runs to the daily news meetings, which BostonNOW webcasts. “If we don’t involve the community in the direction of the paper, print journalism will become less and less relevant,” says Wilpers.

Notable Achievements: With no advertising or marketing BostonNOW has registered over 500 bloggers in 12 weeks. Today the paper is “out in the community” hosting events and aggressively looking for more bloggers. Wilpers attributes their success in part to the structure of BostonNOW’s homepage, which dedicates a third of its space to publishing the work of bloggers in the community. Posts are ordered chronologically, guaranteeing everyone some time on the homepage.

A Surprising Realization: Wilpers was very surprised by the enthusiasm of bloggers for a product that is not typical to their demographic. Most of the bloggers for BostonNOW are 20-30-years-old and readily admit that they don’t read a paper.

It’s a tough sell at first, said Wilpers. But their enthusiasm mimics the moment when a television camera points to a crowd and everyone begins to scream uncontrollably. “There is some magic from being in a paper that is seen by 100,000 people,” says Wilpers. Tech savvy folks find it an attractive proposition — the print industry becomes a kind of flyer or promotional vehicle for work they are doing on their own websites.

Biggest Practical Lesson/Mistake: Early on, BostonNOW excerpted a post from the Bostonist, giving full credit to the authors but taking the post without first asking permission. Wilpers called to apologies after complaints had been received and created a working relationship between the Bostonists and BostonNOW that lasted throughout his time at the news organization.

But the initial lesson had been learned. Even though the author of the Bostonist was excited to appear in the paper, she felt as if her work had been stolen. Not all bloggers will throw themselves at the paper, especially when they already have readers that number in the thousands.

In the aftermath and with the right conflict management, the Bostonist has become a supporter of BostonNOW. “We took someone who had no interest in daily newspapers, got all of her news on the web, and all of the sudden she was proselytizing for a print product,” says Wilpers.

Another more practical lesson learned: BostonNOW launched the paper before the website was up. As a result, no bloggers were included in the first issue. As the BostonNOW model expands to other cities, Wilpers says the company will not make the same mistake. The key is to do the proper spade work to garner a blogging community before the release of its first edition.

Money: For the Paper: The business model is based solely on advertising, there are no paid subscribers.

“People love free stuff if it’s a quality product,” says Wilpers. Free papers have proven they can stay afloat and the Metro brand has shown it can be a successful model. BostonNOW hopes the inclusion of bloggers will make the difference and draw more readers and advertising revenue.

For the bloggers: In the initial 3-6 months BostonNOW has not paid bloggers, but does drive traffic back to their websites. The company does recognize that when they excerpt a blog it is a value judgment on their part, an editorial decision. That value is not overlooked and the company does want to create a method of compensation for bloggers. BostonNOW is currently in talks with the national writer’s union to figure out a system of contracts that would fairly pay bloggers for their work.

Future Goals: BostonNOW’s next goal is to take this idea on the road to other papers around the United States. The company hopes to expand to 10 newspapers over the next three years. We should be seeing number two sometime this fall. The city has yet to be announced.

Wilpers has left BostonNOW and is currently “out there on my own pushing mainstream media into accepting and embracing the new world of the Smart Web, consumer involvement (online and in print), and the building of sustainable (exclusive) communities on their turf.”

What Are you Hoping to Get from other People at the News Innovation Conference?

“I want to find out what other people are doing that I haven’t though of yet — how they have gotten members of the community involved in what they are doing, I want to complement them by stealing ideas.”