Fake grassroots don’t grow.

It seems an obvious statement. But it remains lost on too many Internet entrepreneurs, who will lay down plenty of fertilizer, but who seem unwilling to plant actual seeds.

Last week, a relative who works in the journalism field told me of a pitch he’d heard from a gentleman who’s planned a national network of hundreds of local “citizen journalism” websites. He’d hired a techie to produce a site template (“Which should be ready in four months!”) and was seeking investors to raise money for a national sales staff. As for the content… well, the readers would provide that!

If anyone wants to take bets in another dot-com dead pool, put down March 2008 as my guess. (And that’s assuming the would-be CEO finds a full year’s worth of venture capital funding.)

Last week also brought news of turmoil at Backfence, one of the more notable attempts to create a local “citizen journalism” network. Co-founder Mark Potts returned after other co-founder Susan DeFife left the company, amid reports of lay-offs of up to two-thirds of the company’s staff. (Backfence was one of the local grassroots reporting sites that disappointed OJR writer Tom Grubisich in his round-up of CitJ efforts in 2005 and 2006.)

One might think that thousands of failed newspaper dot-com discussion boards from the 1990s would have taught the everyone in the industry that “if you build it, and don’t staff it, at best, a few wackos will show.” But some managers and investors continue to cling to a new media business model that reads like something written by the “South Park” underpants gnomes:

Step 1. Install discussion/blog software.
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Profit!

Perhaps this frenzy to create a “reporterless” news publication is simply the logical extension of the disdain that many in news management have had for employing actual journalists over past decades. It’s the ultimate Wall Street fantasy – a newspaper without reporters.

The trouble at sites like Backfence should warn investors considering ventures such as the one my relative’s colleague proposed. Online publishing remains a tough, competitive business. The skills necessary to build and manage a lively online community — the core of any grassroots journalism project — lie outside the skill set of many journalists, MBAs and Wall Street investors. But that does not mean that such skills do not exist.

The most successful and profitable community websites demand every bit as much work as goes into producing a daily newspaper of similar income. Readers do not long contribute smart copy to a website for free without substantial encouragement, guidance and affirmation. A site template and comment algorithm won’t provide that. A community website needs people, leaders who can find the most knowledgeable sources, ask the right questions and elicit thoughtful responses.

Just like a news reporter.

No, an interactive news community does not need as many staff reporters as a newspaper or broadcast station. But you can’t expect a community to grow, and survive, without leadership. And an MBA or Wall Street type without the ability to write or report thoughtfully on a website’s subject matter does not count. In fact, given the tough economics of launching a news website, the weight of an MBA’s salary might itself be enough to sink the project. (See Robert’s Rule #6 in top mistakes made by new online publishers.)

I’m sure that many would-be local journalism entrepreneurs are inspired by Jason Calacanis, the Weblogs, Inc. co-founder who built a network of inexpensively managed topic blogs into a $25 million purchase by AOL. But Calacanis’ blogs still relied on writers with knowledge and passion about their topics to attract the attention of readers.

New local websites that succeed will follow the rules for building strong reader communities and avoid the mistakes made by unsuccessful publishers. They will be the work of writers who know their communities, who are experts in one or more of the various beats within it, and who take the time to draw thoughtful comments and insightful reports from their readers. Whether one cares to call these leaders “journalists” or not.

The sites will not be empty shells, the Potemkin Villages of entrepreneurs with a template and a temporary sales force.

Fake grassroots don’t grow.

Now, go plant some real seeds… and see what happens.

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Editor’s note: For some time now, we’ve been including links to Technorati and Yahoo at the bottom of each OJR article, so readers can track what other websites are saying about that piece. Today, we add a link to Google Blog Search, as well.

I’ve been watching Google Blog Search’s results for OJR articles, and over the past weeks found them more extensive and relevant than Technorati’s. (Though Google continues to include results from too many bot-written “scraper” blogs for my taste.) Rather than replace the Technorati links, however, I’ve decided to link both Technorati and Google, so readers can choose the better source for their own needs.

We will continue to link Yahoo, as well, to hit backlinks from more traditional websites that neither Technorati nor Google index as “blogs.” (FWIW, I chose Yahoo over Google because Google does not reveal all backlinks to a URL in its normal search engine results pages. And yes, I’m looking at Microsoft’s Live search and might add it at some point in the future.)