Rieder: A new Philly website with an activist streak

PHILADELPHIA — Shannon McDonald is very clear about why she signed up for Jim Brady's latest adventure in digital journalism, the Philadelphia start-up Billy Penn.

McDonald, who had worked as a social media strategist for Philly's public radio and TV operation and had run her own hyperlocal news site, liked the idea of starting something from scratch. "We can rewrite the rules," says McDonald, the new site's community manager. "We aren't going to do something because it's always been done that way."

That very much dovetails with the way Brady, who has had a number of high-profile jobs in digital journalism at established companies, is looking at the world. "I'm tired of changing cultures," he says. "I want to create them."

Brady has run the show at washingtonpost.com; tbd.com, a much-hyped but short-lived local news start-up covering the Washington, D.C., area; and Digital First Media, a big, struggling newspaper company trying desperately to adapt to the digital era. All were interesting gigs, but all ended badly.

Now Brady is doing it his way. While Billy Penn is based at Temple University, Brady is funding the site at the outset with his own money. Unlike many local news sites, Brady's is a for-profit operation.

The site, aimed at Millennials and mobile devices, had a soft launch in late October. At this point it features curated content — adding cool headlines to links to stories from other Philly news outlets — and original material from Billy Penn's first two reporting hires, veterans of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Harrisburg's Patriot-News.

But things will get underway in earnest early next year, and Brady is thinking big, "Our goal is to make Philadelphia a better city," he says.

While journalists are traditionally loath to cast themselves as change agents, Brady is unabashed in his determination to help his adopted new city solve its daunting social problems. The key to this strategy is what he calls groups, topic areas on the site presided over by experts who can help steer intelligent conversations. The goal is the antithesis of the ugly comments that have plagued so many digital venues.

"Curating and reporting are fine, but I'm not sure they are enough," Brady says. "We need to play a more active role."

While the the lineup is hardly set in stone, likely subjects for the groups include education, development, public safety, the economy from the standpoint of young people and the future of Philadelphia. Part of the exercise will be looking at innovative approaches that have worked elsewhere. And the emphasis will not be assessing blame for past misdeeds but, "How do we fix it."

Brady stresses that Billy Penn will not be prescriptive, crusading for specific solutions. Rather, the goal is to offer a platform where smart people can work things out.

There also will be monthly events tied to each of the groups to keep the conversation flowing, a key part of Brady's revenue strategy. Brady is determined to avoid the tyranny of the fickle and often problematic banner ad world. While the site hopes to attract native advertising — ads that are labeled as such but resemble a site's content — and high-end brand reinforcement ads, Brady hopes to make more than half of his revenue from paid events and memberships.

"I remain a believer that you can get people to pay for experiences more than for a story on the site," he says.

Brady is also about to begin fundraising in earnest for Billy Penn. But Philly can be a very insular place, and Brady, while he professes to have fallen in love with the city, is a New York guy who maintains a home in the Washington suburbs and is in Philly during the week. To open up doors he has enlisted Greg Osberg, a Philadelphian and former CEO of the parent company of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News and philly.com.

And while the site has started small, there's no shortage of enthusiasm about the new venture. "This is the most fun I've ever had," says Chris Krewson, Billy Penn's editor and a digital veteran of philly.com, Variety and TheHollywood Reporter. "It's a bright, shiny new toy for Philly."