Earlier today I linked to and excerpted from an article in today’s Wall St. Journal (pointed out to me by Ross) titled: All I Wanted for Christmas Was a Newspaper; Bloggers are no replacement for real journalists.
Paul Mulshine, opinion columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger, misses the point when he argues that citizens aren’t likely to voluntarily ‘cover,’ for example, city council meetings for their blogs in the same way that a reporter does for a newspaper.
Yesterday Northfield Citizens Online board member Rob Hardy added a post titled Citizen Journalism to his Rough Draft blog:
Since its inception in the 1990s, Northfield.org has evolved into more of an electronic community bulletin board than an outlet for the reporting of local news. A few years ago, Griff Wigley, one of the founders of Northfield.org, spun off to create his own group blog, LocallyGrown, which—along with its companion radio show and podcast—does feature hard news and commentary about local issues. Earlier this year, LocallyGrown teamed up with reporter Bonnie Obremski to provide local Representative Journalism.
Vivyan Tran, Sung Hyo Kim, Logan Nash and Mackenzie Zimmer are students in Doug McGill’s journalism class at Carleton College. They produced this 6-minute video titled Representative Journalism: The New…
Dundas Mayor-elect Glenn Switzer has a blog titled Glenn! of Dundas. I’ve added his blog to our civic blogosphere directory, as he intends to use it during his term as…
Mackenzie Zimmer, a student in Doug McGill’s journalism class at Carleton College, has written a piece titled A Small Town with Big Ideas on Citizen Journalism (PDF – full text below).
A Small Town with Big Ideas on Citizen Journalism
By Mackenzie Zimmer
On any given day at the Goodbye Blue Monday coffee shop in downtown Northfield, you will see several people scanning their computers instead of perusing a newspaper, as they nurse their morning coff ees.
The reason is that Northfield has two citizen journalism blogs, LocallyGrownNorthfield.org and Northfield.org, that are highly popular morning reads in town. With a total population of only 17,150, Northfield has two citizen journalism web sites covering local news, events and activities — Locally Grown, which attracts nearly 7,000 visitors a month, and Northfield.org, with a monthly readership of about 9,400.
Unlike their newspaper counterpart, the Northfield News, these websites provide citizens with more than just breaking news and a calendar of events. They also serve as important social and community hubs by providing a forum for civic discussion and a database of comments on articles from readers. They even showcase other local citizen blogs.
I update my Northfield civic blogosphere directory every few months… and did so again yesterday. See the current version and let me know if there are changes needed.
Over the past week or two, there have been a couple of comments indicating that Locally Grown is, or is perceived to be, a “liberal blog”. I find this both…
Coordinators Julie Bubser and Zach Pruitt are now bloggers at the newly revamped Northfield Healthy Community Initiative (HCI) website. Right photo: Mary Nelson, Julie Bubser, Zach Pruitt, and Curt…
Doug McGill, visiting instructor in English at Carleton, invited me and Northfield Citizens Online/Northfield.org board member Doug Bratland to his Truth vs. Power: A Journey in Journalism class this week…