Published October 20, 2007 by

Northfield News joins the local civic blogosphere

In today’s Northfield News, Managing Editor Jaci Smith has an editorial titled: Call to arms: Now is the time to get involved.

We’re in the midst of a Web site redesign that was to include an opportunity for citizen blogging. Then Ron and Bettye’s letter showed up. So instead of waiting for the redesign, starting today, we’re launching a local politics blog. Ron and Bettye asked for a citizens’ forum and we want to provide it: a place to exchange ideas, questions and ultimately, find solutions. What it won’t be is a site for malcontents or a forum for wannabe politicians. It’s about positive action.

Northfield news blog screenshot

The blog evidently doesn’t have a name so I’ll just call it the Northfield News blog for now. I’m not sure why they’re using the dotmobi top-level domain for the blog, ie, blog.northfieldnews.mobi — maybe it’s just what GoDaddy provides for their Quick Blogcast service, and that the News wants the blog to be mobile-ready and that they intend to add a podcast later.

Welcome, Jaci. I look forward to the contributions that you, your staff, and your readers make to Northfield’s growing civic blogosphere. I’ve added a link to your blog on that blogosphere page, under the media listing.

Griff Wigley

Griff Wigley

Blogosphere

One Comment

  1. Griff Wigley said:

    Jaci sent this email to people who’ve recently submitted letters to the editor:

    Colleagues:

    You’re receiving this e-mail because at some point, either via e-mail, phone or in person, you’ve expressed an opinion about the current chaos at city hall. Rather eloquently in most instances, too, I think. 🙂

    I wanted to drop you a quick invitation to join a blog the Northfield News launched today to explore what we all think the issues are surrounding the current problems at city hall and what our collective brain power could come up with for solutions.

    I’m not really interested in this becoming a forum for finger-pointing, but rather to help focus the News’ coverage and maybe even get some real community journalism going that results in positive action.

    I hope to hop on it each day and offer what I hear, see and think and I’m really hoping you all will do the same. Log onto to our Web site at http://www.northfieldnews.com and click on the local politics forum button on the right side of the page. Then, jump in!

    As always, I’d love to hear what you think. You know where to find me. 🙂

    I wonder what she means by “… maybe even get some real community journalism going that results in positive action”?

    October 20, 2007

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