My thoughts on hyperlocal news—prompted by the forthcoming launch of TBD, the Web and TV combo for the D.C. area—have drawn visits from some powerful news organizations. While they’re at it, perhaps they can check out A national information stimulus plan: How iPad-style tablets could help educate millions and trim bureaucracy—not just be techno toys […]
Read MoreComing: How the Washington Post and New York Times could cope with TBD and other hyperlocal networks
Update, July 19: This should probably be online by 7 p.m. Eastern Daylight tonight. Lots to say! – D.R. Hey, did you think I’d stop at How TBD could use hyperlocal journalism to kick the Washington Post’s butt? The strategy ideas for the Post will appear here over the weekend or on Monday. The same […]
Read MoreHow TBD could use hyperlocal journalism to kick the Washington Post’s butt
Update, Aug. 19: TBD’s current coverage is a long way from what I propose below. The Alexa Web traffic measurement service is hardly scientific, and besides, TBD has just started up; but if the service on the mark, the new site is far from an instant success. I lack access to TBD’s internal stats. – […]
Read MoreTBD, meet NYC’s Westside Independent: Role model for SOME neighborhood blog affiliates?
You already know if you’ve been following the Solomon Scandals blog. My name is David, I’m a newsaholic, and I’m cheering for the TBD news startup to thrive here in the Washington area. But will topics like sports and food elbow aside civic matters at times because of the personal passions of TBD’s affiliate bloggers? […]
Read MoreTBD’s Washington area news startup: Niche blogs wooed—but no signs YET of a hyperlocal nirvana
Update, July 2: Here, including further comments from TBD. Thanks for listening. – D.R. The TBD Web startup for local news in the D.C. area has added Allergy Life in Loudoun, U Street Girl, Rockville Central and other blogs, pushing the number of network affiliates past 70. But I’m still not yet seeing enough commitment […]
Read MoreAbout Helen Thomas: Oy! But keep her name on the SPJ journalism award
I know—I’m a few days behind on the Helen Thomas controversy—but I wanted to reflect. This was a little close to home. I respected the maverick side of Ms. Thomas even if her White House questions were often activist rather than journalistic. At one point I tried to see if she’d read Scandals for a […]
Read MoreSally Quinn, snobbery and the Mink Stole Ladies Syndrome
Washington is full of people telling others how to live their lives or at least wishing they could. Same for the media world. I call it the Mink Stole Ladies Syndrome, based on a party scene in The Solomon Scandals from the D.C. of several decades ago. Sally Sterling Quinn, with her judgmental dissections of […]
Read MoreWashington Post vs. Allbritton’s TBD Web startup plans: BOTH sides could do better
Mediaite has it right. Halfhearted measures like a kind-of local blog network are not enough to protect the Washington Post’s domination of D.C.-area news and opinion. The Post’s new blogger network is just a start and merely one measure; but it’s still a far cry from what I’d do in L Street’s place. Why no […]
Read MoreHyperlocal journalism: Georgetown publisher robbed—and eager to tell neighbors about it. Lesson for the Washington Post?
Update, 1:47 p.m.: Post rival’s local news strategy—a Poynter Institute item. – D.R. My online friend Beth Solomon, publisher of TheGeorgetownDish and absolutely no relative of the Sy Solomon in my newspaper novel, got robbed. A thief carried off Beth’s purse, checkbook, credit cards, wallet, car keys, iPhone, Blackberry, everything, after she left her car […]
Read MoreStudent newspaper raided at JMU: As if a slavery-blind Guv isn’t enough for Virginia
Virginia, where the governor honored "Confederate History Month" without at first even acknowledging the evils of slavery, has another winner on its hands. She’s Marsha Garst, Commonwealth’s attorney for Rockingham County, who let police raid the newsroom of a student newspaper and carry off hundreds of unpublished photos of alleged riot participants at James Madison […]
Read MoreRobot reporters crossed with mannequins?
Face it. Human journalists have flaws, and I don’t simply mean typos and other atrocities in print and online. Pity female reporters. Just now I read on Twitter that editors should look around the office, concede the obvious and probably assign all fashion stories to freelancers (a rather unfair gibe if you factor in staff […]
Read More‘Red Hot’ Engel sisters, possible iPad edition, Henry Adams and ‘Scandalize your classroom’
Remember my optimism about Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, the play by the Engel twins, based on the life of the uppity liberal Texas columnist who fondly gave George Bush the nickname of “Shrub”? So far, the write-ups are upbeat, and I predict that R.H.P. will make it to Broadway—aided by […]
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