Getting our hyperlocal thing on in Morristown, NJ

Just about everyone agrees that newspapers will live or die in the coming years based on how well they deliver local news. And not just generic local coverage, but hyperlocal stuff — news and views you can’t find anywhere else.

Like most newsrooms, we’ve been exploring what that means for us. In our case, New Jersey offers a special challenge: It’s a patchwork of 566 towns and cities, each with a distinct local character.

So how do you do hyperlocal in 566 places? Sure, we’ll continue to cover news and trends and do the kind of enterprise and investigative work we’ve always done, but how do you deepen and expand that?

Part of the answer is that hyperlocal doesn’t have to be based on geography. There are certain subjects, undeniably local, that cross municipal lines: high school sports, music, community theater, and so on.

But here, as elsewhere, people do want to read about the towns they live in. They care about local property taxes, crime, public services, development, rec leagues, their neighbors and a whole lot more. And we need to figure out a better way to cover these things — or to help organize that coverage. (My friend Jeff Jarvis, who is working with us to develop our approach to hyperlocal, likes to quote Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook on the importance of providing “elegant organization,” and he’s right.)

Our first experiment, in Morristown, NJ — Morristown Green — is heavy on community organization. The idea behind it is pretty simple: We might not be able to cover everything ourselves, but we know the people who are most involved in local life and we can reach out to them and provide them with the tools and training to blog (or podcast, or vodcast) about the things they care about most.

One of our many wildly talented reporters, Kevin Coughlin, has spent the better part of two months leading a recruiting effort in Morristown, and the roster of contributors is long and impressive. It includes politicians, community activists, teachers, students, concerned citizens, business owners … and the list goes on. In the coming weeks, more and more of those people will begin contributing to the site.

The site itself is nothing fancy, just a group blog with lots of related content (a searchable events database, real estate listings, classifieds, obits, resource links, etc.) in the rails. But it’s an exciting start, with a lot of great stories, comments, pictures and videos already. Here’s one video from a local jewelry store that caught the attention of the NYC media and brought a bevy of camera crews to town:

Where does all this go? We’re still working on that, paying close attention to the things others are doing and reaching for something that accounts for the vast array of places and interests that make up New Jersey. For now, we’d appreciate any and all feedback on Morristown Green as we get it up and running. What do you think?