Buffalo Rising?
The redesigned Buffalo Rising Magazine hit the streets yesterday after a short hiatus. The new design is much different than both the original quarterly that built the company and the confusing tabloid version that was launched when the magazine went monthly.
The new tagline for the magazine? “Nothing happens here that’s not on our screen.” Or, more succintly, “You already read all of this on the website last month.” (Well, except for a couple of things…which I’ll cover later in this article.)
The articles are shortened versions of posts to Buffalo Rising Online and the pages are also sprinkled with reader comments from the website. Essentially, the new BRM serves as a marketing tool to get people to visit the website and as a vehicle to add value to advertising contracts. Not a bad model, I guess.
What’s notable about the magazine and the website, is what you find when you do a little “digging”.
As described by Co-President and Publisher George Johnson in the latest edition of the magazine,
“We break news of New Buffalo online. Everyday, you can find out about development, neighborhood improvement, grassroots initiatives, cultural and community events, food and the city’s restaurant scene. It’s our beat. It’s what we do best. It’s what we love.”
What’s missing in his description of BR is that they also host discussion about heroin, dog sodomy, and muggings in the city…
Before we get to that, let’s back up a little to frame the discussion properly.
Buffalo Rising eschewed the typical media mindset of dealing with political issues and focused on iterative economic progress and events within the City of Buffalo. They would embark on building a business model around the selling of hope. They built a loyal cadre of readers after asking for wide support from the established blogosphere at their inception.
As Co-Founder and Co-President Newell Nussbaumer told Donn Esmode in 2006 “Unlike a newspaper, we don’t have to cover everything,” Nussbaumer said. “We can focus on community-building issues. We fill a niche that people want to explore.”
BuffaloRising also has a mission and editorial direction and it is markedly different (not better nor worse) than ours. They have always been “hyperlocal” and exceedingly positive.
Nor does the company want to veer out of city centers towards the suburbs – which pretty much rules out serving the huge campus of SUNY Buffalo in suburban Amherst. “The City is the aspirational center,” said Johnson. We are identifying stakes in the community. We want user exhaust.”
BuffaloRising Online (BRO_1.0) grew out of a quarterly magazine that highlighted local business, mostly on the Elmwood Strip, and after nearly a dozen issues, they added a free Blogspot blog that also highlighted positive news and goings-on within the geographic boundaries of the City of Buffalo.
The mission was to spread the good news about what’s cool and happening about Buffalo. It was a good idea and one that served to counteract the never ending drumbeat of negativity found in the pages of The Buffalo News.
BRO_2.0, did away with the Blogspot blog, enhanced the design, and made the whole outfit a bit more corporate, but what didn’t change was that it was fueled by a dedicated cadre of Buffalo lovers who wrote about the city and their passion for living in it.
The new site served the purpose to build an online buzz about Buffalo. They had made the leap from being a member of the online community into the local vernacular. BRO and the face of it, Newell Nussbaumer, were becoming players in the local media scene and in the city as a whole.
Building upon that success, George and Newell brought in a business partner, Barry Heneghan of Think Financial, a local private student loan company. With an influx of angel investment cash, Hyperlocal Media opened swanky new offices in the Cobblestone District, launched BRO_3.0, and switched from a quarterly magazine to a monthly tabloid with a style borrowed from European alternative newspapers.
One thing that seemed obvious to observers was that the loyal cadre of contributors who joined Newell and George at the start of the company were no longer part of the new, capitalized Buffalo Rising. Most of the original contributors, designers, graphic artists, and supporters were replaced by an initial wave of new hires. Now, most of the members of that initial wave of new hires have been replaced – for the most part – by unpaid interns who are in it for the resume boost, not the mission.
While the magazine was “down for upgrades”, there was a renewed focus on building revenue from the website. In order to build revenue online, ad sales needed to increase and one way to ensure that happens is to increase traffic numbers. Which is not a small task when you are already established.
So, how does one obtain a general uptick in traffic? Optimizing your website for search engines and utilizing social networking sites like Digg, Facebook, Reddit, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Twitter, and MySpace would be a pretty good place to start.
A recent tour of Digg.com, the 97th most visited site on the web and the leading social networking and news linking site for creative young professionals, paints a pretty interesting picture.
Since at least mid-June, BRO has been posting negative stories about Buffalo that are saved to a hidden cache page and not posted to or made mention of on the main pages that we are all familiar with.
I didn’t read about the YWCA heroin-at-daycare case on BRO, did you? Yet here it is, and it was Dugg by nearly two thousand users. Which put it on the frontpage of one of the web’s most visited pages, seen in the neighborhood of 200,000 times.
Here’s a story BRO didn’t post (but did) about the man who was beaten with his own prosthetic leg. I especially love the accompanying graphic. It’s been posted to Digg.
To top it off, BRO has even posted stories from way outside city limits – Lockport, County of Niagara, is representing on BRO’s cache site, with sodomizing pitbulls galore. Digg? Check. Over 1,000 Diggs, to be precise.
The stories were submitted to Digg by “Diggleague”, who is identified only as “Alex B.” While it is not obvious that Alex is an employee or intern at BuffaloRising, the fact that he knew the location of these hidden pages would indicate that he is.
When asked about the issue, George Johnson responded, but it wasn’t on the record and I’m not willing to post the details. However, I will say that he didn’t deny the effort to bump traffic numbers.
Also, after being contacted by WNYMedia.net, the original articles were removed from the cached pages on BRO and replaced by new ones with a caption that reads, “Discover up-beat stories, events, and more about Buffalo, NY anytime. Morning. Noon. Night.”
So, while promoting the wonders of Buffalo to the local audience, Buffalo Rising is perfectly content to promote some very ugly, very negative stories about Buffalo (and Lockport, County of Niagara), to a separate worldwide audience in order to artificially inflate web statistics.
Buffalo Rising was founded on core principles of hyperlocal city-only puffery. That it would betray those principles for an artificially manipulated bump in traffic is truly disappointing for those of us who thought that BRO’s principles were founded in ideals, not ad sales.
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The last 2 times I saw a shit slinging fest like this was
1 at a UAW local meeting in the mid-70’s
2 at a Democratic Party Rally around 1967.
That’s a sad commentary as it tells me nothing is changing
Some of the people who are writing their comments act just like their grandfathers did. Aint’ learned nuthin’, eh?
Pundit has a bunch of commenters. Some I think are cool, most in my mind are a group of authentic whack jobs. I piss off the Pundit from time to time. He’s never censored me or any other commentor that i know of, and he does NOT control the comments on his blog. READ IT. The pundit gets his balls broke frequently by more than a couple of his regular commenters.
Alan, i appreciated your arguments, you conducted yourself well considering you got dragged into this. This whole thing had nothing to do with Alan or his blog. When i think he’s got the tinfoil on , I say so. When he’s right or done nothing wrong he sure as hell don’t need me to defend him. He does fine by himself.
Mike Miller, thanks for being the voice of reason.
I couldn’t care less about the blogwar, but looking at the Dog Sodomy story, I am appalled that they used the dog’s name when the dog is only 2 (that’s 14 for you and me).
And now, back to the catfight . . .
This is why I blog about movies. And books. And what I did last weekend…
I just re-read the thread to wrap my head around all of the accusations by the commenters about Buffalo Rising/Hyperlocal Media. Here’s a summary:
- Claims of stiffing employees: 7
- Claims of stiffing vendors: 5
- Claims of selling advertorial content to the public as editorial content: 3
- Lawsuits threatened by BR: 3
- Whisper Campaigns against other businesses by BRO: 2
Combined with some general distaste for George Johnson (why ya gotta hate on the brutha, yo?) and some wild excuse making for St. Newell, this was a pretty entertaining thread.
If someone got these anonymous commenters on the record about how BR has screwed them over the years, we’d have an interesting feature story.
BROke = Bad For Buffalo
Hey, I just missed Big Brother 8 by reading all this. Bummer.
Being the whore I is….
Geek is going to be Late Night in da Buff tonight to talk about this…
http://indabuff.com
And to think I just decided to move back to this city.
There are several things that are bothering me other than our compete waste of time.
1) I wonder how the conversation (communication) between geek and figmo went down. It really bothers me when someone says, “that was off the record, but I will tell you this……”. It reminds me of William Burroughs: “Thanks for a nation of finks”. Don’t get me wrong I don’t agree with the potential hypocrisy of BRO and I am not a big fan of BRO, but I also do not agree with divulging “off the record conversations”, if that is in fact what Geek did.
2) I feel confused. I feel weird about living near Elmwood, especially since I like coffee shops and wine. It’s not like I hang out at coffee shops and act cool, but I do go there for coffee. I’m truly thankful they are there, and thankful someone is acting cool. If not, it would be an empty store front with weird people hanging out harassing my wife when she walks by. And I did just finish a glass of wine, well after a beer, but still. So I must be a hipster, which apparently make me an a-hole. But when I tell people I grew up in the city of Tonawanda, I am usually labeled as trash , but now I am an urban hipster. What happened? What kind of a-hole am I? These stereotypes and the cut-downs are way too much. Putting the false stereotypes aside, It kills me when people stereotype against the perceived “cool kids”, is that not a double standard?? How does the logic work “Your acting cool, so that makes you an a-hole, but since I am calling you out, I am in fact really cooler than you, only I don’t act cool so I am righteously cooler.” ??
3) But the real thing that bothers me is: time and time again on these websites people choose to divulge in some pathetic, ego tripping argument. And it really shows that darkest sides of our human nature: argue, ego, argue, you said this about what I said and that’s not true, ego, ego, your wrong, I’m right, compete, ego, this group of people are a-holes and we are not, ego, compete, win, stab, win, kill, shoot. Really, really, really pathetic and shameful. Like an ol’timer told me the other day, we have been given all these new ‘tools’ (for example internet blogging) but no one has taught us the proper etiquette on how to use them. One would hope our personal ethics would provide that but…guess not. It’s just all too satisfying to call someone an a-hole, or out wit them in a text argument, and not have to face them…isn’t it…
“Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts.
Thanks for a continent of despoil and poison.
Thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger.
Thanks for a vast herds of bison to kill and skin leaving the carcasses to rot.
Thanks for the bounties on wolves and coyotes.
Thanks for the American dream to vulgarize and falsify until bare lies shine through.
Thanks for the KKK.
For nigger-killing lawmen, feelin’ their notches.
For decent church-goin’ woman with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces.
Thanks for ‘Kill a Queer for Christ’ stickers.
Thanks for laboratory AIDS.
Thanks for Prohibition and the war against drugs.
Thanks for a country where nobody’s allowed to mind their own business.
Thanks for a nation of finks.
Yes thank for all the memories – all right let’s see your arms!
You always were a headache and you always were a bore.
Thanks for the greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.”
William Burroughs – A Thanksgiving Prayer (in Mondo 2000, 1992).
Ha ha, screw Buffalo Rising! Damn rich kids with egos. Anyone who went to Nichols is a snot.
Geek, have you considered cutting off comments on this? It would be a classy thing to do. What hasn’t been said?
Everyone knows by this time.
Me oh my, the comments are too scary. Too bad everyone can’t talk this over champagne cocktails. Has anyone seen the new Sharper Image catalog? It’s divine!
About what Jim said a few comments up – excellent.
Maybe I’m the only clueless one here, but…Hidden caches? Buying up sound-alike website names? Most of us just read or blog along with no thought and/or knowledge of these things being used. But then again, most of us don’t do this for a living. The ones that do have an entirely different vantage point.
We can’t change or make the city better via a blog, web site or another Artvoice. I find all of this funny, rich kids spending their parent’s money on blogs and “rags”. Why not get up and go use some of that money to do some good outside of the Elmwood Village.
Hey Jim,
Thanks for the William S. Burroughs…. if any one wants to hear and see him read the poem: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4212204341571541144&q
Let’s all go to Colter Bay for some drinks. Oh, make sure you have a receipt from your outfit from J.Crew ’cause you’ll get “the discount.”
Any organization that bases itself on the idea that it will only say what is positive is doomed to degrade into precisely the sort of corruption that overcame BR.
You’ll find hope when you find people who are zealous about the truth, not when you become a pollyanna.
It has not been mentioned that Artvoice, the successful Buffalo Alternative News Weekly, has been operating for decades on the backs of unpaid interns and writers, not to mention editors who could probably not pay their gas bill with what they were paid for their labor. Not that I would say that Jamie Moses is a respectable business man.
I was wondering if anyone contributing to WNYMEDIA is paid for their blog contributions?
Sadly, Buffalo is a horrendous town for being paid for writing. Even The Buffalo News has dreadfully low fees for stringers that either rely on the writers naivety or desperation or want to see their name in print, to keep them coming back for more.
The zero or little pay for staff thing is sadly an industry standard.
The above comments are an example of why I think blogging and citizen journalism is problematic and mirrors the digital divide. It also mirrors Bob McChesneys’ criticism about citizen journalism and the blogasphere.
I credit Chris (Buffalo Geek) for uncovering the story of Buffalo Rising actions on the internet, but the real story that needs to be investigated is Buffalo Risings’ lying, exploiting and defrauding its employees.
Exploiting the idealism of people who are working to create something for the greater good is criminal. I been there and have done it, in my twenty plus years in local alternative media.
One of my rules at Alt Press was always tell people who worked for or with you, the truth about money or the lack of and always do what you could help the folks who volunteered or work for you. What Buffalo Rising did to their people, if true is beyond arrogant and fucked.
Anon7, as it is around the country, journalism in Western New York is in big trouble, especially free-lance. There are few venues and very little interest in local investigative journalism, or critical analysis. 99 percent of the local blogs are generally talking out of their hats.
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.buffalorising.com/5_year_old_hands_out_heroin_in.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20070722183825/http://www.buffalorising.com/cached_p/dog_attack.html