Jewish News Media Network

Over the past several years, Jewish websites have become increasingly popular with young Jewish adults aged 14 to 25. As technology drives more communities online, though sites such as Facebook, MySpace and other social networking communities, the need for relevant online Jewish content becomes more critical to Jewish continuity in the 21st century. Specifically, Generation-X’ers and ‘millenials’ rely heavily on new electronic media to interact with one another, and to obtain their sense of connection with their Jewish identity. Extremely popular sites such as Jewlicious and JewSchool are groups which reach approximately 10,000 (mostly Jewish) viewers a day.

 

These Jewish ‘mega-blogs’ provide information and discussion that engages thousands of unaffiliated Jewish young adults which otherwise might not have any source of connection with the rest of the Jewish community. Even with their impressive international reach, their impact on building local Jewish community is more limited. While these large websites (or their members) sponsor specific events, or discuss specific locales, these events do not have as their focus building stronger connections among the local and regional Jewish communities, and tend to be located in densely-populated Jewish areas (i.e., NY, LA, or Jerusalem). If we are to move forward as a community into an internetworked era, we need to take heed of the changing demands and start thinking globally while acting locally and with agility.

It has been noted by the American Jewish Press Association that young, Internet-savvy Jews dissatisfied with existing Jewish print media, and are looking for some critical attributes from their news sources:

• Relevant information

• Independent reporting

• Convenient (online)

• Minimal to no cost.

 

The Plan:

 

To receive funding and create an organization tasked with the creation and support of locally based Jewish websites in diverse burgeoning Jewish communities to provided a relevant independent source of Jewish content and news. The aim of the organization is to outreach to unaffiliated Jews to draw them to their local communities. The model would be based on a central office recruiting and training individuals in different communities, on creating and maintaining these websites, as well as providing the local blogs with marking materials and technical services. The model would be built on first using fund-raising funds to get these site off the ground, and then generating advertisement revenue from the sites to cover in part the cost of operating the organization.

The layout of the model would succeed with young Jews by emulating the success seen with other Jewish blogs. The model for a regional Jewish blog which we will adopt is similar in nature  to the ones found in San Francisco Bay Area called  Oy Bay (www.oy-bay.org), or the Chicago-area’s Jewish Fringe (http://www.kfarcenter.com/jewishfringe/) blog. Both of these sites provide a mix of event information, editorials, hard news, and multi-media content that is specifically targeted at a young Jewish demographic. Through the network we would sign up blogs like these on to the program and give them the tools and funding to grow and make greater impact in their local comminutes. Beyond working with existing blogs, the organization would seek out other communities around the world that could benefit from such a service and attempt to establish similar websites.

 

Key communities identified as potential locations for affiliated blogs are:

• San Francisco Bay Area

• Los Angeles

• Chicago

• Miami

• Paris

• Philadelphia

• Boston

• London

• Toronto

• Washington, D.C.

• Montreal

• Baltimore

• Sydney

 

 

The regional affiliate blogs would be supported by a central office which would centralize almost all of the overhead that any regional blog might have, such as fund-raising, IT infrastructure, HR and sale of ad space. Specifically by having the bulk of the fund-raising at the national level, this leaves the regional Jewish sites free from editorial influence from the donors, thereby insuring a greater degree of independent media. By centralizing the IT infrastructure, there are web hosting and web development cost savings, along with reducing the overall IT complexity for the regional sites. Additional resources would be offered by the central office, specifically: training, promotional items, policy / legal advice, and marketing collateral. By pooling the needs of all affiliated sites together, collective saving can be achieved.

 

 

Every regional site would be headed by an ‘anchor’. An anchor is an individual who is charged with organizing the site. An anchor is not necessarily expected to be a writer, but more along the lines of an ‘editor-in-chief’. It would be the anchor’s responsibility to recruit new writers, make social and professional connections with Jewish organizations, collect information on local events and news, and relay potential advertisers to the central office. An anchor would be compensated for their efforts with a small stipend, in addition to funds given to the anchor for regional promotional expenses. The goal is to recruit anchors that are active in their local communities and committed to the mission of the organization; not the monetary compensation.

 

Human factors

 

The central office would be staffed by two to three full-time professionals. Initially an Executive Director (ED) would be recruited, and additional roles would be filled as time progresses. Key areas to be filled would be advertisement sales and technical support. The central office personnel would handle the recruiting of anchors for every target region, obtaining advertisers for the websites, managing the finances, and website development support.

 

Anchors would be responsible for recruiting volunteer writers, and supporting their activities. Writers would be offered a package of benefits including, press pass credentials, access to local exclusive events, and business references that would assist their pursuit of a career in journalism or writing; whether Jewish publications or not.

 

Financial Plans

 

The short term organization plans are aimed at weaning the organization off fundraised dollars as quickly as possible with the goal to eventually reach 20% ad revenue and 80% fundraising each year we estimate this taking 5 to 6 years on a sliding scale.

References:

http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/world-jewish-population.htm

http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/32849/edition_id/609/format/html/displaystory.html