Local journalism isn't a hot Web 2.0 field. Journalist Dan Gillmor learned that the hard way when he had to sell his unsuccessful citizen journalism site Bayosphere to a similar venture, Back Fence, which itself has barely grown past a few communities in Maryland and Virginia. Turns out people get their local news from old outlets just fine, or they turn to specific blogs. That makes sense; why would I need my local news to share a platform with everyone else's local news? The only way to add value is to aggregate already-existing local news and let the user pick the geographic and topical scope they want. That's exactly what EveryBlock, which launched this week, aims to do.

"Citizen journalism" — journalism with the participation of its audience and community — is an ideal easy to support, but it's not so easy to build a business based on idealism. Dan Gillmor, ex-journalist and leading promoter of citizen journalism, citing his lack of business skills, wisely jettisoned Bayosphere, the Bay Area community journalism site, to Backfence earlier this year. Now Backfence is "ceasing operations within the next few days" for all of its communities (the site is still live, but the closure notice is posted on each area's community page).

Backfence, the community journo site where every writer's a "neighbor" — I think that translates as "comrade" — broke out of its Maryland and Virginia circuit to buy the Bay Area's news-by-the-people site, Bayosphere.