Introducing Hometown 4, because there’s a lot more to news than what happened
Featuring an all-new story format to help you understand and keep up on the important issues in Oakland.
Local news can keep us informed and engaged on the important issues where we live. But traditional news articles tend to focus on what just happened, with little context or a sense of the bigger picture.
They don’t explain how we got here or what’s motivating the people and organizations involved.
Finally, they don’t offer a way to keep up with the story. The best you can do is hope an update finds its way to your Facebook or Twitter feeds.
Local news could be so much better!
Hometown 4 re-imagines local news
At Hometown, we organize the news into long-lived “storylines” that are meant for you to come back to over time. Our small team of journalists updates every storyline as it develops. And you can follow a storyline just like you would a friend on Instagram, to make sure you’re notified when there’s an update.
Best of all, storylines are organized into easy-to-scan sections so you can dip in and out quickly. Here are the sections of the new storylines in Hometown 4.0.
Background & Resources
This section sets the stage for the story and explains what’s at stake. It also includes important resources like images, videos, or maps from various high-quality sources.
Who’s involved
Knowing who has power in a story is key to understanding it and getting involved. This section describes the story’s players and their role in shaping the outcome.
A quick link to their website lets you contact them so you can get more information, in touch, and involved.
Where things stand
Reading what just happened is great, but knowing where things stand and what might happen next helps you dip in to get the information you need quickly.
Timeline of updates
Some local stories take months, sometimes years, to develop. Others move so quickly it can be hard to keep up.
A storyline’s timeline gives you the overview you need to understand how we got to this point.
Broader perspectives
Local is where national debates get played out. In this section, we offer high-quality opinion pieces from across the political spectrum to help you understand how a local story fits into the bigger picture.
At Hometown, we’re on a mission to remake local news to help you understand and get involved in the issues where you live.
We’ve got lots more in the works, but for now, we can’t wait for you to give Hometown 4.0 a spin.
As always, we’d love your feedback at hello@hometown.is
Thank you!
The Hometown Team
