"Financial Survival Guide"

Sometimes one station's journalism can be magnified by a corporate effort, especially online. That's part of the thinking behind the Financial Survival Guide, now featured on the Web sites of all E.W. Scripps stations.

The idea for the project came from company headquarters, but each station is putting its own stamp on the content.

"Consumer and investigative stories have always been a Scripps brand," says.Adam Symson, vice president, interactive, for the Scripps Television Stations Group. "Don't Waste Your Money," for example, has been a popular feature on WCPO-TV in Cincinnati for a long time, well before the recession hit. Now, those stories have an online home in the new "survival guide" section at WCPO.com and on other stations' sites, like WPTV-TV in West Palm Beach, Fla:

The survival guide page on each station's site has the same layout, with sections like Stretching Every Dollar and Surviving at Work. Some of the content comes from corporate, including long-form print stories from the Scripps Howard News Service and United Media's Frugal Village.

Scripps is also providing its stations with customized, searchable databases in widgets like the Foreclosure Finder, that lets users search for properties in their local area. "When we created the page we wanted pertinent data that would make the site sticky as well as provide information," says Scripps' data projects manager Lawan Williams. She looks for data she can turn into interactive features that will have a long shelf life, or as she puts it, "Tools people can use as they try to make decisions about their everyday lives." Using government data, Williams has built sections like "Are you getting paid what you're worth?" and "Does the IRS owe you money," with more to come.

The project has changed on air content as well. At KSHB-TV in Kansas City, "Workers Wanted Wednesdays" are now a fixture. The morning newscast every Wednesday features a call-in segment and Web chat with local companies seeking to hire.

The project's overall goal is to provide "counsel and advice in difficult times from a trusted source," Symson says. The message to viewers and users: "We're going to be here, hold your hand a help you through this." The financial survival guide has also been a hit wiith advertisers, according to Symson. "We've had a lot of success selling it because advertisers want to be associated with that sort of content that advocates for citizens."

Money Matters is funded by NEFE

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