The Solomon Scandals A Washington newspaper novel by David Rothman

Georgetown Dish joins TBD blog network: Deju vu angles—in Washington Post’s backyard

Newest mem­ber of the TBD blog net­work in the Wash­ing­ton area is is none other than the George­town Dish. It’s the same hyper­local site I’ve been men­tion­ing for some months now because of the fame of the neigh­bor­hood and the lively writ­ing—and, yes, a founder named Beth Solomon.

George­town is home to ex-Washington Post edi­tor Ben Bradlee (still a Post vice pres­i­dent at large if you go by a bio in his lat­est book, a col­lab­o­ra­tion with his son Quinn) and count­less other well-known jour­nal­ists. The Dish deal hap­pened, in other words, right under the Post’s nose. What’s more, remem­ber who TBD’s top guy is: Jim Brady, who for­merly edited the Post’s online edi­tion. Only, now he’s build­ing up TBD, owned by the Allbrit­ton inter­ests, the same peo­ple who years ago owned the Wash­ing­ton Star. A few lit­tle ironies and a  lit­tle Back to the Future in all of this, eh? Beth her­self is the niece of the late Nina Hyde, once the Post’s fash­ion edi­tor. The Dish runs short items where Quinn links back to his site devoted to learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties, and I’d hope that wouldn’t change even if tech­ni­cally he’s abet­ting the competition.

Strate­gi­cally, the deal means that the Dish and TBD can learn from each other and lever­age each other’s resources. A Dish gos­sip colum­nist with a juicy media-related item in the Dish, for exam­ple, could end up with facts spread far and wide by the TBD net­work. What’s next in this déjà vu world? Bring­ing back The old Ear col­umn (not The Ele­phant in The Solomon Scan­dals but a source of inspi­ra­tion). Right now the Dish’s Alexa rank in the U.S. is 343,136, with just six incom­ing links listed by the Web traf­fic ser­vice (huh, no Scan­dals link shown there?). But the num­bers could improve with the new alliance.

For more details, see a just-posted Scan­dals com­ment by Steve But­try, TBD’s com­mu­nity engage­ment direc­tor, as well as the cov­er­age from the Dish and the TBD blog. I’m be curi­ous what this means in terms of the Dish’s own pos­si­ble net­work plans. Could they still hap­pen at least out­side the D.C. area? Or does Allbrit­ton alliance mean they’re dead?

This week’s promised items in the Scan­dals blog: They’re still on, just not today. Break­ing news first. Tag and Google fans, you can win a free trade paper­back of The Solomon Scan­dals by reveal­ing the source of the related pho­tos in my pre­view of com­ing attrac­tions.

• TheGeorgetownDish starts up: Hyperlocal newspaper war ahead? Or a friendly buyout?
• Washington Post vs. Allbritton’s TBD Web startup plans: BOTH sides could do better
• Solomon Scandals hyperlocal series so far: A list for latecomers
• The Watergate editor and the society legend: A loving look at them by their son who lives ‘A Different Life’
• Gore sex probe dropped in Oregon: A NONscandal, without sufficient follow-up in the Washington Post and Politico