I’ve discussed the mission of my media project and I’ve offered some thoughts on the content, the sources and a few of the ways people would adopt it.
Now on to the practical issue: How do you build it?
When thinking about this project, a few things really matter:
- It’s got to be simple. Simple to add content, simple to upload multimedia, simple to experience.
- While we’re at it, it should look professional.
- Must haves include: Navigation, search, subscription.
No problem: Here’s a great WordPress theme (for a one-time fee of $80), and here’s a simple video on how to install it on your own domain. Here’s the theme in action.
Too steep of a price? No worries – there are tons of free themes out there and a with a little tweaking of some CSS code (sounds scary, but not bad) you can make a presentation all your own. Something that truly reflects the community.
It’s so painfully simple, it makes me wonder why many media outlets insist on looking like this. Or this. Or this.
And just to prove small community media can do it, visit the Le Mars Daily Sentinel. Nice work.
