Strib South joins the blogosphere

The Star Tribune’s South section, which covers Northfield, launched a blog this week titled the South Blog — or maybe it’s just South of the River.

South of the Minnesota River, folks talk about where they live as “south of the river,” as if it’s a community apart from “the Cities” – Minneapolis, St. Paul and its inner-ring suburbs. Each week, Dennis Buster and a staff of three reporters and a photographer produce a section for those who live south of the river. Buster, editor of Star Tribune South, has lived near Lakeville for about 20 years. In the South Blog, he and his staff will post items from the metro’s “third city” and ask readers to join in online conversation about the people, places and issues of this interesting and growing area.

When I took a look at the blog, I noticed a post by the Strib’s Director of Community Publications Larry Werner titled What do you like most about South?

I do like the section and I think they’re generous in their coverage of Northfield, given our small size compared to other ‘south’ towns. And it’s good for the Northfield News to have some print competition in addition to the Northfield Entertainment Guide (NEG).

But I thought I’d express some mild irritation, not just what I liked, so my comment included this:

We’ve noticed that neither the print nor the online versions of Strib South mention/link to any of the Northfield area blogs or discussion forums/threads, even though it’s pretty clear that the reporters glean information from them. We religiously link to Strib articles and opinion pieces, so I was wondering: could you do likewise? I think it’s the neighborly thing to do, it’s how the blogosphere operates (and you’re now part of it), and it would engender more good will towards the Strib. Or is there an editorial policy against this?

Within an hour, both Larry and a colleague, Dylan Belden, replied. And now both Locally Grown and Northfield.org are on their sidebar resource links. Cool.

So join me in welcoming them to the local civic blogosphere, the second area media organization with a blog to be included. The other? Our generous podcast collaborator colleagues at Carleton’s KRLX 88.1 FM.