Sept. 30, 1:03 p.m. Community news sites band together to create the Chicago Independent Advertising Network

NiemanJournalismLab reporting:
At last year’s Block by Block conference, the first of the maybe-annual confab of community news site editors and publishers, one of the big themes that emerged was a simple one: solitude. Lots of local news publishers — many of whom work both on the business and editorial sides, and with no permanent staff — labor in relative isolation as they go about covering the news, coordinating logistics, and, most importantly, selling the ads that kept the other work sustainable.
So it’s noteworthy that a group of fifteen Chicago community news sites have joined together to overcome the isolation, launching, this week, the Chicago Independent Advertising Network. The network, which will began running ads on November 1, is an effort to bring the benefits of scale — and the complementary ideas of “safety in numbers,” “misery loves company,” etc. — to the business side of community news.
ChiAd isn’t the first to try the network approach — see the Seattle Indie Ad Network and the Boston Blogs network, for example — but it’s notable not only given that it’s situated in Chicago, which offers a rich ecosystem for community news sites, but also given that it’s a collaboration between for-profit sites and foundations: ChiAd’s efforts (including the hiring of a full-time ad salesperson) are being funded by the Chicago Community Trust, which both suggested the initial idea of the network and convened its current participants, and by the Knight Community Information Challenge, which put up matching funds for the project.http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/09/community-news-sites-band-together-to-create-the-chicago-independent-advertising-network/?utm_source=Daily+Lab+email+list&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6c27a90887-DAILY_EMAIL