Poking around Pegasus

I’ve been spending a lot of time this evening poking around Pegasus News, the long-awaited new media site in Dallas, Texas, and I’m impressed.

So impressed, in fact, that I’m willing to call it the best of the local news site so far, where a lot is done right. You could do a lot worse than modeling a local news site after Pegasus, both as a new voice and as competition for existing media. It’s that good.

What are some off the things I like about it?

> Real staff. Small, but active. The job descriptions include a database editor. Bylines linked to bios of staff and lists of all stories from individual contributors.

> Speaking of which, databases galore. Entertainment listings, movie listings, neighbourhood-level news linked to Google-style maps, political contribution lists for local elected officials, restaurants (searchable by cuisine, neighbourhood, etc.)….

> Local news right down to the neighbourhood level and it’s not ladies auxiliary strawberry teas (not that there’s anything wrong with them). Hard news, features, opinion.

> A entertainment section that hosts pages for area bands, includes downloads of local music, etc.

> A business section that includes a Topix-driven search for news on hundreds of Dallas-area businesses.

> Delivery on the front page of the site (after user registration) of neighbourhood-clustered news and events.

> Smart news. The Daily You (coming soon) will track registered user’s clicks and, over time, using your clicks and those of folks like you, customize what’s delivered.

> Clean, elegant and friendly design.

> Comments on stories which, in one case, included a comment from Pegasus’s president Mike Orren, pointing to an outside blog for more info on the story.

I could go on. There’s that much there: this site is comprehensive, deep and wide. A lot of thought and smart decision-making has gone into this. I’m sure there are bound to be some things in there not to like, but I haven’t hit them yet. (I want to spend some more time with Pegasus. Live with it for a while and see how it develops.)

I’m not sure how this will work out financially. Orren, in a Thanksgiving blog post, wrote:

I’m thankful for the Pegasus News team, which worked over a year without pay; toils for near-Dickensian wages now; and is working through the holiday weekend as I type. (2:52 on Thanksgiving day and 45% of the staff is active on Gtalk.)

I suspect, partly because of that last issue — staying in business — Pegasus will be closely followed by a lot of watchers inside and outside the media tent. Focussing on that, though, misses the point that Pegasus is an evolutionary step forward for local media. In fact, if I owned a local newspaper, I’d be studying Pegasus really hard and stealing as many ideas as I could. And I’d be doing the same if I were interested in building a local community site that would start nibbling on the local newspapers lunch. And dinner.

(NOTE: Late this evening, through J.D. Lasica, I learned that NowPublic has launched its latest iteration. I’ve only had a chance to take a glance at it, which makes me feel slightly guilty writing about what’s happening in Dallas when NowPublic is based here in Vancouver. I’ll play catch-up with that tomorrow.)

SOURCE: DAN GILLMOR | TAGS: JOURNALISM, RETHINKING MEDIA, PEGASUS