The Richmond News Review is a little over a month old. We've done a lot in that time: produced six shows, had two interviews, and garnered a small but loyal and growing group of listener fans. But there's still a lot to figure out about the identity of the show. I've talked about whether or not a locally-based podcast can survive, and the feedback from at least some listeners out there is that the RNR is performing an important service. But as some people start to refer to us as an alternative source of news, I want to be really careful about what standards and expectations we set.

Is the RNR a primary source of news?

Not in a strict journalistic sense. Most all of our stories have been "reviews" of stories we've found in other media outlets - mostly the Palladium-Item, but a fair amount from regional and even national and international sources, too. In this way, the RNR is just an aggregation of primary news sources with some editorializing thrown in. (The exception might be the interviews we've done, where some firsthand information is coming out about legal issues related to CAFOs or what a local paper is doing with its online presence, but maybe this is less hard news and more firsthand insights and commentary.)

However, sometimes analysis and synthesis of primary news sources can result in a useful news product in and of itself. While it should not be mistaken for what you get when you have a team of paid reporters spending large amounts of time personally looking into story ideas, I've heard from a number of people that the RNR has become a primary source for finding out information about news in our community. It wouldn't exist without the media outlets it relies on (and the magic of the Internet that makes reviewing all of them possible), but apparently that fact doesn't make it any less useful.

What does the future hold? Should we become a primary news source? If you haven't already discerned it from my commentaries and choice of stories so far, I feel strongly that the Richmond area needs better sources of news. Whether that's done through improvements to the Pal-Item or by the creation of a competing entity isn't really relevant here. There's no way that the RNR can serve this purpose any time soon with our very limited resources, but the success of the show so far points to a real thirst for that kind of alternative.

For now, we'll keep on going in "highlight" mode, shedding light on stories and perspectives that may not come out in existing news sources, knowing that there's much more to do when the time comes. And whether you get some or all or none of your local news through the Richmond News Review, thanks for listening.

Stay tuned for an upcoming episode where I'll talk more about what news sources DO exist in the area, and how we got that way.