December 14, 2010
Newsroom cafe: Journal-Register Co. goes web-first with bold approach to community engagement
A daily paper from Northwestern Connecticut is now serving coffee and pastries along with news, in an effort to increase community engagement. This week, the Register Citizen opened a new newsroom in Torrington, CT. The 13,000 square foot facility features the Journal-Register Company’s first newsroom café...
The newsroom café is open to the public and serves coffee and pastries. It also offers:
- Free public wifi
- Public access to more than 120 years of newspaper archives
- Classroom/meeting space with video conferencing capabilities
- Dedicated space and workstations for the public as part of The Register Citizen’s Community Media Lab.
- And more...
While the newsroom café concept may be new—or at least novel—in the US, it’s been happening at least since 2009 in the Czech Republic. The New York Times reported in 2009 on a chain of Czech news coffeeshops operated by PPF group.
Eric Pfanner of the Times wrote:
“A free press is a relatively recent development in the Czech Republic, but it has not been immune from the travails the newspaper industry has faced in more-developed markets. Dozens of papers have been shut down in recent months as the economic crisis has deepened. Yet PPF, a firm based in Amsterdam with banking, insurance and media holdings in Central and Eastern Europe, sees an opportunity in the turmoil.
“PPF is starting small, investing less than €10 million, or $13.4 million, in the project for now. It plans [as of 2009] to begin publishing seven weekly newspapers and about 30 web sites serving four distinct regions of the country.
“...If the sites and newspapers are successful ...the goal is to add scores of similar ones across the Czech Republic—and perhaps beyond, in other Central and Eastern European countries.”
The news café idea occurred simultaneously—and independently—to David Cohn, founder of the journalism crowdfunding service Spot.us. In a 2009 blog post, he wrote:
“Aside from being a revenue stream (coffee, bagels, etc) it would create a deeper connection between the news organization and the public. Could story tips be garnered this way? Perhaps it would be a great way to meet and encourage citizen journalism partners. Could a news café take on MediaBistro in the workshops/training department? Could the space eventually be used to organize civilized public debates? Is this something that could be franchised and repeated in the following cities: San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, New York, etc?”
Good luck to the Register Citizen’s new venture. And take it easy on the espresso.
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Tags: community, business models, engagement, communities, community building, citizen journalism
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