Hyper-Local

I don't know quite what to make of the partnership between spoof newspaper The Onion and august media giant The Washington Post. This interview doesn't make the terms of the agreement any clearer, but it does seem that the Post will be selling Onion ads and printing the humorous physical artifact to be distributed in newsstands and sidewalk boxes. Given the importance of the Internet to the parody press's success, it is interesting to see the value placed on "local" coverage for their mockery and on the availability of the tangible page. As a recent episode of Frontline on PBS reported, many newspapers are surviving by scrapping foreign bureaus and concentrating on "hyper-local" coverage.