WNYMedia.net:
Building an independent voice
By Christopher Schobert
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“Tom Reynolds kind of threw us into the forefront. Chris and I went over to his press conference on the Mark Foley scandal where he kind of shielded himself [with kids],” says Odien, a former Channel 2 photographer. Smartly, Odien shot Reynolds in a wide shot, allowing the camera to capture the awkward and creepy image of the red-faced, sweaty Congressman surrounded by children. “I think we were just about the only media outlet that had a wide shot of the whole scene. Everyone else was tight on Reynolds’s face. So we posted the video on our site. We woke up in the morning and it had gone regional. By two in the afternoon it had gone national—the New York Times. By mid-afternoon the Daily Show was calling us wanting the video.” That is the advantage of web-based journalism, and that’s why WNYMedia.net is so vital. It is a bold, new form of capturing news and opinion that is already changing how Western New Yorkers read, watch, and hear what’s happening.
Most exciting of all are the changes that have taken place on the site. Frequent visitors have surely noticed that along with links to the group’s popular blogs—Buffalo Pundit, Buffalo Geek, All Things Jennifer—there is an increased emphasis on providing news coverage, video, and podcasts. “Everything’s changing,” says Odien, who might be considered the site’s managing editor, as well as its creative and technical expert. “We’re building content around the blogs. We’ve been around for about two years now, and we’ve built a pretty good base of Buffalo bloggers. Now we’re building multimedia content around them. We’re trying to build an independent media network for Buffalo.” In a city with one major newspaper and where weekly local papers are finding it harder and harder to stay financially solvent, this might be the most sensible and logical way to start up a news outlet. “We’re almost like the Courier Express of the new century. That’s our hope. Our bloggers are basically columnists,” says Odien. “We hope to offer raw news unedited. It’s a different way of covering news, a more personal way. People take news reporters as experts on everything, and they’re not. Here we have lawyers who are experts at law, politicians who have studied policies, so they can give you a totally different perspective on things as opposed to a news reporter straight out of college.”
Odien, a Western New York native, moved to the South after college. He returned in 2002 and worked at Channel 2 until 2005. He now devotes his time to the site, and he’s also a founding partner of Convergence Media Networks, which encompasses WNYMedia.net. When the site began, Odien says it was one page with links to various news stories. “From there,” says Odien, “we started adding some of our own comments and content, and after the 2004 election, I came up with WNYMedia Network to merge some of these bloggers into one site. We started off with about three of them, and in the past year and a half, we’ve built it up to about thirty-five different sites, with more waiting in the wings.” Convergence and WNYMedia have a new headquarters, 67 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo. The Allentown location features space for online radio and video, as well as a proper meeting place for the folks who encompass the network. “We’re still a virtual company, but what we wanted to do here was put a more visible face on it. We needed space, a radio studio, sets—someplace where we could centralize everything,” says Odien. “I consider this corner the heart of the community.”
Chris Smith was a frequent poster on SpeakUpWNY, a local opinion website, when Odien spotted his writing. He’s been involved ever since. Today, Smith is focusing on sales, and has a plan to “reinvent the way web advertising is done in Buffalo,” he says. “We want to try to find some unique ways to monetize putting content online. What we want to do is try to create an online mass of advertising.” Similar to Odien, Smith grew up in Western New York, left the area after college, and returned. He says he’s starting to see a similar drive among many former residents. “Once many of them left and got a little perspective, they missed their roots. They do long for it, and they’re waiting for a reason to come home.”
WNYMedia.net and Convergence Media Networks represent examples of how Buffalo can grow and innovate. “Eventually there will be five of us here and forty coming in and out each day,” says Odien. “Ultimately there’s a group of about fifty-sixty different people affiliated with WNYMedia. We have about eight different channels.” These channels will include a greater variety of coverage, especially sports, in addition to politics and news. “People are logging on,” says Smith. “If people log on to talk about the Sabres or the Bills, perhaps they stick around and maybe read about some other things that are going on. We represent a new version of citizen advocacy journalism. If we can bring them on with cool stuff and keep them there, we can get them to see how they can make a change, and how they can be a part of a better city.” As Odien says, “Everyday we get more and more interest, and there are more and more people coming to us with ideas. The sky’s the limit.”
Christopher Schobert is associate editor of Buffalo Spree and editor of Spree’s City Guide.
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