Community Funded Reporting
Kieran Farr  |  17 Oct 2008

How Does the Economic Downturn Affect Small San Francisco Businesses?



Dsc00342_medium
The presidential candidates frequently remind voters that small businesses are the engine of our nation's economy. How have small businesses in San Francisco fared after the bursting of the housing bubble and subsequent economic fallout? I'd like to profile 3 small San Francisco businesses representing diverse sectors, such as tourism/retail, b2b and construction. Mayor Gavin Newsom recently announced a local economic stimulus package as the threat of job losses looms over the Bay Area. This story would give Bay Area residents insight on the real, everyday issues facing small businesses given the current economic outlook.

How will it help?

These pieces will be extended video profiles driven by the business owner, employees and clients or customers, instead of a story driven by a reporter's voice-over narrative. The business stakeholders will have an opportunity to directly express in their own words the impact the national crisis on their local business.   This style isn't permitted with traditional broadcast TV reporting and erects a barrier between the subject and the viewer. These pieces would remove the barrier of reporter voice-over to let the subject fully drive the profile. Input from academic experts will pepper the stories to give broader national and economic context.



While I'm relatively new to video journalism, I've built a quick portfolio of pieces: http://www.vidsf.com/user/kfarr/ My time has been limited to produce in-depth content as we work on our startup and I drive a cab to pay rent. A spot.us payment would enable me to focus on stories that require a much longer preparation process. Here is an earlier attempt at doing something long form about the Cab industry here in SF: http://www.vidsf.com/2008/aug/27/cabbies-face-financial-burden-from-impending-yellow-cab-contract-changes/
I will produce 3 x 3-minute profiles on 3 different San Francisco small business (9 minutes total, if not a little longer). Each will feature an interview with the owner or a manager, an employee and some representative customers. I'll also interview at least one academic in the field of business, economics or public policy to give their feedback on each business. These profiles will be published on VidSF.com. Depending on the outcome of these initial pieces, a future funding request could support followup profiles in a few months.
Dsc00325_thumb Author
Kieran Farr
Peer review: Taylor Rogers
This story has been published:

How Does the Economic Downturn Affect Small San Francisco Businesses?

by Kieran Farr | 25 Jan 2009 | sfbay
This is the first in a three part series by VidSF to profile small San Francisco businesses during these tough economic times. In this first profile we focus on the Nob Hill Grille, a small diner doing well despite the gloom and doom of the wider economy. The video has been published on VidSF as well and is also made available for others to republish. They can embed this Vimeo player or can request the content without the VidSF exit.…
Read the published story
Widget
Get the Spot.Us Widget
Want the embed code to add to your blog or site!? Grab the different widgets below.
To get this widget, just grab this html code and paste into your template. You can of course change the width of the iframe to fit your template.

Spot.Us Lite

Spot.Us Lite is widget which allows anyone to register at Spot.Us, login at Spot.Us and even donate to a pitch without having to leave the site hosting the widget. Isn't that cool?'

You need to follow a few steps to get Spot.Us Lite working on your site. Just follow these simple steps below to get it up and running in no time.

  1. Download the file http://www.spot.us/helper.html, and upload it to your root folder on your server.
  2. Grab this html code and paste into your template:
  3. You now need to modify the pasted code. You need to change 'http://www.domain.com/path' to the root path of your server. Example: If you can access the helper.html file at http://www.domain.com/path/helper.html, then you add http://www.domain.com/path there.

You can of course change the width of the iframe to fit your template. Note: As Spot.Us Lite is an interactive widget, we recommend that you do not use widths below 300px.

If you have any issues with the widget, please contact info@spot.us

Organizational Support

Mc150x150_thumb
OlyBLOG.com
$25.00

Public Support

$145.00 donated by 8 people