The Miami Herald was the only Net-J pilot site that required partner links and stories to appear on discrete partner pages inside the newspaper’s website.
The Herald had its parent company, McClatchy, develop a common web platform and content management system that all the partners had to use to post and share content. Even if the partners had their own websites, they needed to post stories and links on their “channel” on miamiherald.com.
In addition to links to the latest stories, each partner page provided two ad spots that partners could sell – and retain all the revenue – and a couple spots The Herald could sell. However, not much advertising was sold for these spots.
At its highpoint, the partnership had about a dozen partners. By the fall of 2012, only a few of the partners were posting regularly and several had gone belly up, attesting to the fragility of so many community news start-ups.
