About Us
SmartNewsroom will be a national network of freelance journalists — reporters, designers, photographers and page designers — whose work will be available for download by member newspapers. Member newspapers may also make their content available to other member newspapers.
AFFILIATED JOURNALISTS:
Journalists: Interested in joining SmartNewsroom? Go here >
Contributing journalists are independent contractors who make their work available to member newspapers through the SmartNewsroom clearinghouse. SmartNewsroom journalists provide stories, photos, infographics, illustrations and pre-paginated features on a wide range of topics, from breaking news to weekly food pages. It costs them nothing to be SmartNewsroom independent contractors.
Member newspapers get one-use rights to publish SmartNewsroom content in their print publications. SmartNewsroom’s rich content provides an affordable variety of options. SmartNewsroom is ideally suited for small dailies, free dailies, community weeklies and alternative weeklies with limited budgets.
How it works: Affiliated journalists create content and upload it to SmartNewsroom’s servers. The content is added to the menu and made available to member newspapers. Member newspapers preview the content, download it and pay for it, then rate the quality of work on a scale of 1 to 5.
Affiliated journalist earn $1 for each point on the scale (e.g., a rating of 2.5 earns $2.50 per download). A rating of 1 is assigned to all new affiliated journalists.
The size of the downloading publication is also factored in. The $1 for 1 rating point is available to all publications with a weekly circulation or distribution of 100,000 or less. Publications with weekly circulation or distribution of 100,001 to 500,000 pay $2 per 1 rating point. Publications with weekly circulation or distribution over 500,001 pay $4 per 1 rating point.
For publications that distribution less frequently, prices are determined by per-issue circulation or distribution: $1 for 1 rating point for publications of 25,000 or fewer; $2 for 1 rating point for publications of 25,001 to 50,000; and $3 for 1 rating point for publications of 50,001 or greater.
Example: A reporter covers a campaign speech in her hometown and uploads a story to SmartNewsroom. Over time the reporter has earned a rating of 3.0. Each time a newspaper downloads a story by her, it pays $3. If 100 newspapers download her campaign speech story, the revenue from that story is $300. If some of those publications are mid-size or larger, the revenue would be even greater.
Journalists can also collaborate. A reporter may write a cooking story, a photographer may take a picture for the story, a graphic artist can create an infographic, and a page designer can put it all together in a full-page or 3/4-page spread. The four journalists would share in the revenue earned from downloads of that page based on their rating.
Example: A 5-point writer, 4-point photographer and 3-point designer collaborate on a travel page. The price for the page is $12; the writer would get $5 (based on his rating), the photographer would get $4 and the designer would get $3.
MEMBER NEWSPAPERS:
Publications: Interested in participating in SmartNewsroom? Go here >
Member newspapers pick and choose the content they want, paying for only what they download. With a growing list of contributing journalists, the SmartNewsroom collection of breaking and evergreen news content grows richer and more diverse by the day.
Products range from individual stories, photos and graphics, to fully paginated, content-rich themed pages such as Food, Gardening, Entertainment and special projects.
Prices are determined by the journalist’s overall rating on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 going to newly joined journalists, and 5 going to the journalists who produce top-quality work. A journalist with a rating of 1 gets $1 per downloaded product, whereas a journalist with a rating of 5 gets $5 per downloaded product.
The size of the downloading publication is also factored in. The $1 for 1 rating point is available to all publications with a weekly circulation or distribution of 100,000 or less. Publications with weekly circulation or distribution of 100,001 to 500,000 pay $2 per 1 rating point. Publications with weekly circulation or distribution over 500,001 pay $4 per 1 rating point.
For publications that distribution less frequently, prices are determined by per-issue circulation or distribution: $1 for 1 rating point for publications of 25,000 or fewer; $2 for 1 rating point for publications of 25,001 to 50,000; and $3 for 1 rating point for publications of 50,001 or greater.
Pages and packages are priced based on the sum of the ratings of journalists involved, unless the page includes sponsor advertising, in which case the contributing journalists, newspaper and SmartNewsroom share in revenue with a 25-50-25 percent split.
Example: A 5-point writer, 4-point photographer and 3-point designer collaborate on a travel page. The base price for the page is $12.
Member newspapers pay for their downloads with credits, which are available in increments of 100, 500, 1,000 and 5,000, at a rate of $1 per credit, plus 20 percent.
Member newspapers may also contribute material to SmartNewsroom and earn revenue. In this case, the publication as a whole would be assigned rating points by downloading publications, with payment determined by points multiplied by 1, 2 or 4, depending on the size of the downloading publication.
SPONSOR ADVERTISERS:
Businesses can sponsor topical pages with a quarter-page banner of ad space in which to display their digital-ready advertising content. The price is determined by the total circulation of newspapers that publish the product. Contact us for more information, rates and a list of sponsorship opportunities.