Bluffton, South Carolina is a small, rapidly growing town about an hour’s drive north of Savannah. Just the kind of community that the Savannah Morning News would love to serve, but can’t—the kind of hyperlocal news that today’s readers’ crave simply demands too much space.
Morris Communications, publisher of the Morning News, and Garcia Media took a revolutionary approach to the problem, creating Bluffton Today, a hyperlocal, colorful, tabloid-size newspaper distributed free to every home in the area (16,500 circulation).
Bluffton Today has in-depth stories, short, information-packed pieces, police logs, little league stats, local business coverage—everything readers clamor for in a community paper. But the paper has a unique voice: the voice of the reader.
That’s because the Bluffton Today is tightly tied into a Web site (www.blufftontoday.com)
where readers post news items, share photos, recipes, opinions, and even have their own blogs. Highlights of these contributions are worked into the printed edition, creating a powerful conversation with the reader.
“Newspapers have gone on the Web by putting yesterday’s news online,” said Steve Yelvington of Morris. “That’s a one-way street. We are doing the opposite; participation is right at the center of what we’re doing.”
Today news is about this kind of conversation—both online and in print. Garcia Media is currently working with papers in other fast-growing markets to create similar dynamic, hyperlocal dailies and weeklies.