“As the Earth nears a completely arbitrary point in it’s rotation, we are forced to once again pretend we care, remark upon how quickly it went and pretend we’re going to change our behaviours in significant ways” - Drew Sturgiss (1988-2012)

The other odd occurrence of year end is the parade of predictions for the coming year/decade/century and the navel-gazing epitaphs of the year that was. A particularly interesting prediction article from Mashable discussed potential and probable developments in news media for 2011 and beyond. While the list was fair, logical and likely for the most part, there is an eleventh item that needs adding.

So, in the interest of joining the flock, I predict that 2011 will bring with it another significant change for news media: localisation. The blogosphere has been awash with localised blogs and news sites for awhile. However, as 2011 begins to blossom, we will see blogging become more and more mainstream and, with it, more commercial local news sites.

In Australia, Fairfax Media has begun the long overdue plunge into digital media, bringing a raft of changes within the company and a number of new positions in that area. They have begun investing resources in their local news organisations. As alluded to above, Fairfax has not been one of Australia’s innovators in the digital sphere. Instead, localised news services and Twitter have gained ground on the Fairfax local papers across the country. However, the ramping up of investment in local digital news by Fairfax precipitates, for me, a rising tide of news services for local communities by local people. The unfortunate part of this development is that many of these new services tend toward a traditional control media attitude, with editors and journalists deciding what gets published.

I believe there is a better way to deliver local news for and by local people without everyone joining a neighbourhood Twitter list. Such models should integrate with geo-location services and operate in a co-operative business model (I’ll discuss this in greater depth in a later post.) However, take it as a good thing that truly local news might become part of the net in the next few years. The trend, which has already been embraced in parts of the United States, would be a welcome addition to Australia’s media landscape, offering more choice and diversity to local people trying to keep in touch with their community.