How “citizen stringers” can help you hyper-localize

E&P’s “Stop The Presses” takes a look at creative ways to expand coverage in the face of newspaper editorial and budget cutbacks. Among the suggestions are soliciting applications for “citizen correspondents” to cover events that  would otherwise go unreported. Steve Outing’s argument is that “there’s a darn good chance that a citizen correspondent who, for example, is a serious flower hobbyist, and who you pay $5 per blog post, will do a much better job of covering a local flower show than some poor staff reporter who’s assigned to cover it and provides sleepy, dull coverage.”