Manitou Messenger on Northfield’s blosophere

manitoumessenger
The new issue of the Manitou Messenger (“The Student Weekly of St. Olaf”) is out and it has an article titled City bloggers go toe to toe by Tim Rehborg.

Last Tuesday afternoon, a group of men and women of all ages from the Northfield community gathered at Froggy Bottoms Pub for the first official F2F (Frog to Frog) Northfield meeting. The meeting, hosted by prolific blogger Susan Hvistendahl, who edits the FrogBlog, drew together several members of the Northfield blogging community.

7 Comments

  1. Well, it’s actually F 2 F (Face to Face) Northfield, but come to think of it, Frog to Frog does have a nice ring to it! Thanks to Tim and photographer Adam for joining us. We hope to have another F 2 F event in May.

    March 24, 2008
  2. Tracy Davis said:

    I especially liked the part about how Bruce Moreland (sic) started Northfield.org….

    But kidding aside, it was a nice article.

    March 24, 2008
  3. Along with the Manitou Messenger story is a photo of Jane Moline, Ed Kuhlman and Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, all looking thoughtful. The caption was “On Tuesday prominent local bloggers from Northfield.org, ‘Locally Grown’ and other independent blogs met at Froggy Bottoms Pub. Northfield has an unusually active blogging community.”
    Sorry Griff arrived too late to meet Tim and Adam from the Messenger, but “Locally Grown” certainly got good press in the story, as it should.
    Thanks to you from “prolific blogger” Susan Hvistendahl of the FrogBlog.

    March 24, 2008
  4. Leonard Witt said:

    So here is an article in your backyard. How about this one:.

    Periodismo Ciudadano means Citizen Journalism in Spanish and the site promises to be a reference point for Citizen Journalism in the Spanish-speaking world. Neat. This is why I love the Internet.

    March 24, 2008
  5. Leonard Witt said:

    Yikes, Griff, I broke your site. Any how, can you fix the previous item and give it some play. I think it is very neat. Thank you.

    March 24, 2008
  6. Griff Wigley said:

    All fixed, Len… thanks for that link. Here’s the translation, courtesy of Google translate:

    The idea of Journalism Representative who for months has been developing Leonard Witt soon take shape thanks to a grant from the Harnisch Family Foundation and the collaboration of Locally Grown, a local project from Northfield, Minnesota.

    A capital of $ 51,000 is the initial contribution to this first test of the viability of the “journalism representative”, which, broadly speaking, are proposed that the communities themselves (both geographic and thematic interests or any other) that the fund professional journalists responsible for edit and transmit the information generated within each community.

    The online social networks, interactivity and direct contact with members of these communities would also be tools in the service of these “journalists from the community.”

    And the idea of Witt, those niches community information might be added to other similar to a information centre at the national or even international level.

    Witt began to share his idea on his blog, calling the attention of Ruth Ann Harnisch, a former journalist and president of the foundation that funded the trial, who encouraged him and helped advance the concept.

    Locally Grown, for its part, is a project that combines a weekly radio with a blog and interactive podcasts to cover local and analyse information from Northfield, Minnesota, with a great follow-up by the residents of the area and among the community leaders.

    Three citizens and bloggers (Griff Wigley, Tracy Davis and Ross Currier) are responsible for the project.

    Witt also has collaboration with Chris Peck, editor of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tennessee, to serve as editorial consultant part-time.

    And William Densmore, director of the Media Giraffe Project at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, will provide administrative support and supervision.

    If the project is successful in Minnesota, Witt and think of a nerve centre of the “journalism representative” who offers a complete service with the aim of enabling groups, institutions and communities to maintain their own journalists.

    March 24, 2008
  7. Griff Wigley said:

    Ironically, the Messenger article has many inaccuracies (I counted 8 or 9) even as it reported on a discussion at the F2F event about the “journalistic accuracy” of bloggers.

    It’s not a biggie with this article because the items are insignificant in a feel-good type piece. But that’s not often the case and traditional journalism hasn’t yet demonstrated much of a willingness to come up with a better system. I’m hoping the RepJ experiment can offer some insights into how it could be done.

    In the meantime, if anyone knows how to contact Tim Rehborg, author of the Messenger article, please invite him into this discussion.

    March 24, 2008

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