[Popeyes]

Rightmove, the property sales website, absolutely destroyed local journalism in the UK. It was written on the wall, but local newspapers had all the local listings for property and other services. A local newspaper was 60%+ of house sales, but that advertising revenue paid for local journalists to sit and read council papers and attend meetings and get people out in the community. Nowadays, local journalism, even from national broadcasters like the BBC is a shadow of its former glory.

[pbronez]

It’s interesting that property ads, and classifieds more broadly, benefit from a centralized platform but journalism itself does not. It’s an uneven impact of the technology shift from printing presses to digital. Why didn’t the drop in publishing costs make local journalism MORE accessible?

Perhaps it did in minor ways. Facebook Groups, NextDoor, CraigsList, etc make it easy for anyone to share information with their neighbors. Turns out most people just want to sell something or complain about nothing. These activities benefit the author but nobody else.

Local journalism has benefitted a little bit from this dynamic. Regional news organizations put together decent digital platforms and run articles. But they don’t seem to pay as well… again because the revenue spread out.

Honestly, I’d love to treat local journalism as a public good. Could you fund a credible local newspaper through taxes? It’d be WAY cheaper than a school or police station.

The problem is: how can you trust part of the government to keep an eye on the rest of the government?

Perhaps you could impose a mandatory journalism fee based on the municipal budget. Whatever you spend, a sliver goes to the journalists for oversight.

Local governments spend about $2700 per person. Population of 10,000 means a budget of $27M. Give 1% of that to a journalist and you have $270k… enough for a salary, website and some equipment.

You could require that money be paid to a non-profit as a grant. Probably better to elect an Editor in Chief though… that way you can appeal directly to the citizens for validation of the oversight. If you just pay a non-profit, they’ll be incentivized to serve whoever writes the grant… which would be the people you’re trying to hold accountable.

[mywittyname]

What you're describing is a lot like NPR. Which was great, until the people in power decided to pull that funding.

The problem with the government is it doesn't like oversight. So in this situation, you need to devise a scheme where the government is forced to pay something, but also has no control over that money. Which is a hard problem.

[1a527dd5]

Yeah I remember going through those pages as a kid; my local "chronicle" had loads in.

I love Rightmove as a shopper, but it's 2nd-4th order effects have been disastrous.

There have been attempts to unseat Rightmove (e.g. boomin) but it's such a behemoth in it's industry that is tantamount to wanting to unseat Google.

[iso1631]

If you are selling a house you have to list on rightmove. You're not going to choose to list on fewer sites. The question then comes if you're selling, why list anywhere else.

As a buyer it's terrible - I want to be able to see size of property (from the EPC, as I trust that more than the estate agent), the sale history, the EPC data, the council tax band, the map of the plot.

I can find that all out manually by hunting for the real address and going from there, but it should be there directly (and filterable)

As a seller you're forced to use rightmove as that's where all the buyers are

As a buyer you're forced to use rightmove as that's where all the sellers are

As a competitor how can you argue to an estate agent they should spend money with you as well as rightmove