Entries Tagged 'Media' ↓

This morning I woke up on the right side of the bed. I looked out the window onto a hazy landscape and declared that today would be a good day.

So, imagine my thrill to find in my inbox a note from my dear friend Adam about his brand new political blog Post Politics hosted by the very wise Nashville Post*. It’s live. He’s back (opinion and analysis and all!). And I’m elated. More elated than someone should rightly be about a blog.

The day continues to be a good one.

*Had to scroll allll the way to the bottom of the blog to find a link to their front page. I am a fan of the subtle branding. And the blog looks fantastic and robust.** Did I mention I’m thrilled?

**Nope, not jealous in the least.

Current Mood: elated

Because Kleinheider got a job!:

Adam “A.C.” Kleinheider, who until recently ran the respected VolunteerVoters.com site for WKRN-TV News 2, will on Monday join NashvillePost.com to augment the site’s breaking news coverage with a political blog.

Kleinheider ran VolunteerVoters.com for almost two years, amassing a loyal readership of local business and political leaders with his aggregation of and commentary on political blogs from all corners of Tennessee.

Kleinheider’s work will supplement the political reporting of NashvillePost.com veteran Ken Whitehouse, who among other stories recently broke the news that John Wilder will retire.

“We’re excited about bringing on board A.C., whose skills and network are a terrific addition to our team,” said Geert De Lombaerde, associate editor of NashvillePost.com. “Diversifying our content with his aggregation experience will cement our place as the premier source for Nashville-area political news and views.”

Go read the rest from the Nashville Post. It has always been a good paper, but it just got a lot more valuable in my eyes.

I’m no fan of Bill Hobbs*, but I try to give props where they are due, so here goes nothing. Hobbs left a comment at the farewell post at Volunteer Voters that deserves praise on a couple of levels. First, I’ll make with what he said:

It’s been a week, and I’ve come to a conclusion about the demise of VolunteerVoters.com. It’s not a big loss. It’s a MAMMOTHLY HUGE loss. There is a giant hole in the media fabric in Tennessee when it comes to political news. VV was the indispensable go-to source for all things political involving Tennessee, and provided depth and context that the various disparate news outlets often lack.

Additionally, while MSM outlets mention or quote from press releases and documents and such, VV often uploaded the whole thing, or gave readers a link to it - making it a far more valuable resource than any single MSM outlet for politics junkies.

It’s a damned shame that WKRN couldn’t figure out how to monetize the single most valuable political news property in the state. Here’s hoping that some other news outlet, one which understands the new media - and the new media consumer - and wants to be an information portal for its readers rather than just an information destination, decides it wants to take over VV, or at least hire Kleinheider to build a VV replacement for them.

This comment from Hobbs is about as close to how I feel about the situation as it can be. That site was special. It did something no other site does, at least not on the same level (hard for those with other jobs to compete with a full-time, paid blogger), which is streamline local and related national political news and opinion for an influential and sizable audience. Nashville editors, Tennessee senators and journalists all over the country logged in on a daily basis to read what Kleinheider brought. Surely someone with some smarts and a little vision can turn that into a profitable endeavor, at least in the long term. Bill’s dead on with that statement.

Here’s what also deserved recognition, and what prompted me to write this post: Kleinheider gave Hobbs hell. I mean, he deserved it, but VV was relentless when it came to the GOP blogger who is, no matter how you slice it, a force to be reckoned with. And yet, Hobbs comes to one of his biggest critic’s defense because what Volunteer Voters gave to its readers was bigger than all that. Cheers to Bill for being a big man. At least about that.

*Oh hai, understatement.

This comment was left by a Nashville News 2 staffer on the farewell post at Volunteer Voters, the political blog once run by that station:

Although, I always hate to see any one lose their job and I appreciate the work that Adam did here at WKRN. I have to say that if his departure saves the job of just one employee that actually does tv work then it was worth it to me. This is a tv station not a blog station. I saw a lot of tv employees lose their jobs while Internet people remained. Before Adam was let go we had 3 Internet people and only 4 directors. For a TV station that is just not smart. Blogs are a luxury for a tv station not a necessity and this station can’t afford any luxuries.

While I can totally see why this employee would feel this way, it is evident that they are completely unaware of how the internet is changing their profession in radical ways that cannot be ignored. People with this mentality will either catch on or get swept away in the new media tide.

Adapt or die.

This Lego ad gave me cold chills.

Matt Pulle’s column “Desperately Seeking the News” in the Nashville Scene this week may reek of petty sniping between former colleagues, but if you can wade through all the posturing about how much money each paper earns there is some surprising news located within it. The free daily newspaper in Nashville known as The City Paper is moving to a web-only presence:

Eight years after it first rolled off the presses, the free daily is positioning itself to become an online-only publication in a move that will reduce costs—and maybe threaten the paper’s limited advertiser base.

“In the not-too-distant future, that’s how most readers, particularly the ones that advertisers care about the most, are going to be getting their daily news,” he writes the Scene in an email.

Del Favero, who held the same job with aplomb at the Scene for 15 years, first hinted at his paper’s looming transition in a little-noticed trade press release in November.

“Our readers are more likely to read The City Paper at their desks in the morning. And what we found was that, increasingly, more of them were actually reading the paper online,” he said then. “Because of that online readership growth and the expense of delivering the paper each and every day, we are slowly evolving the paper from a print product to a primarily digital product.”

Aside from the rare astute editorial insight or worthwhile investigative piece, what The City Paper has to offer its readers and its advertisers is that it is free. People pick up The City Paper in coffee shops and restaurants because they want something to occupy their eyeballs while they slurp up caffeine and calories. They do not seek out The City Paper for its high-caliber journalism, fine writing or information unavailable elsewhere.

I used to read The City Paper online as part of my job as a media blogger in Middle Tennessee. It served its purpose as fodder for posts. However, I stopped reading the paper when it moved to the confusing calamity known as the E-Paper, because the new format was ugly, unfriendly to users, if not damn near impossible to navigate. For instance, this page looks great. There are paragraph breaks, relevant imagery and text large enough to read. However, this page is what is commonly called a clusterfuck. Start clicking around to see what I mean.

I have no stats or numbers or traffic reports to illustrate my belief that if the City Paper moves to the web only and does not abandon the e-paper format that they are making arrangements for their own funeral. But I am still confident that that will be the case.

I hope they prove me wrong.

Previously at Sparkwood & 21: E-tarded

Should I vote in the Nashville mayoral election if I am moving to San Francisco before the end of this year? That is the question I face on this gray and rainy day. I prefer Karl Dean to Roberto Clemente, but is it fair to vote for either if I’m just going to be living in the Bay Area inside 3 months? I’m not sure that it is. I’d really like to see Megan Barry win a seat on the Council, though, so I’m going to cast my ballot anyway. I’ve always enjoyed the Barrys. Plus, I think she’d make a great progressive addition to the World’s Largest City Council. I’ve lived in Nashville for nearly 30 years of my life, so I think the city owes me one last say in the matter. Besides, I’ll be back to visit.

You see, I’ve taken a job with the local CBS affiliate in San Francisco, California, the land of godless liberals who have gay sex on the streets while shooting up. The kind folks at KPIX (whose website was voted best in the state by the Associated Press) recruited me to run a blog aggregator much like the one I used to run at WKRN here in Nashville. I took them up on their offer to fly out for two days to interview, and after some negotiating I agreed to take them up on a full-time position. I’ll be working from within the newsroom Monday through Friday combing through all the blogs updated daily in the Bay Area, highlighting posts I find funny or provocative or insightful or informative. There will also be an automatic aggregator. Many of you may be familiar with the concept.

If you are wondering why I said I wasn’t cut out for moderating a community blog site, only to take this job 8 weeks later, you likely aren’t the only one. I asked myself that question many times in determining whether to pack up The Boyfriend and the dogs and move 800+ miles to one of the most expensive places in the country. But, luckily, I learned from my very public mistakes made at NiT, and I’ve taken them to heart. This new venture will be less about me. I’m not that interesting anyway. What I mean to say, though, is that I will put less of myself “out there” and concentrate more on building a vibrant blogging community in what is already one of the most wired places on earth. Also, there were some behind-the-scenes issues going on at the old station that I never felt the need to air publicly that had a lot to do with my decision to leave. I denied it at the time, because the pain from The Situation was so overwhelming that that was easy to do. But it was a factor. Also, the area out there is just different. My “radical liberalism” that makes me, according to the locals, “as far left as you’ll find on the internet” would not raise an eyebrow where I’m going. Crusades by blogging GOP mouthpieces when I dare state that Gitmo detainees might not be guilty (of what they were never charged with) won’t set off a firestorm. I’ve always been a liberal in a Republican oasis, but now I’ll be more conservative than most just be virtue of my home state. I relish the thought.

But that site isn’t about politics. It’s about the people of the Bay Area. It’s about mothers and strippers and activists and students. It’s going to be what San Franciscans are talking about, so to speak. I’m thrilled at the idea of getting back into the newsroom. There is a hum in the newsroom, a sense of urgency and excitement that comes with daily turns and breaking news. This one happens to be filled with smart, engaging people who seem excited about the new media possibilities that await them. (Or, the ones I met at least.)

And I’m so excited about living in my favorite place on earth. The weather is phenomenal all year long, the people are diverse, the art scene is incredible (indie and foreign films in the theatre ’til my heart’s content!) and the opportunities are endless. There is a magic to that place, and I’m about to become a part of it. It hasn’t exactly been easy to absorb.

I’m going to miss my friends and family like crazy. I’ve lived here my entire life, so all my roots are here. But I’ve always wanted this. I used to drive down the long stretches of bending roads in Ashland City dreaming of taking the subway. The BART is close enough (and now I’m going to sell my car!). Long ago my “about page” on this blog said that I’d be moving to the Big City very soon. It was up there forever then I took it down one day, resigned that it would never happen. It’s back now and better than ever.

We haven’t decided yet on the timing, but I’m leaving no sooner than 6 weeks from now. I want to get together with many of you before I go for drinks and hugs. And mailing addresses. I’ll be 30 in October and everything I have ever known is here. I’m going to be homesick for a while I’m sure. But I can’t think of a place I’d rather be homesick in.

P.S. In the time since leaving WKRN I have been working as a copy writer at Magazines.com. I just want to take this space to thank the generous and jovial people who make up that great place. They took me on as one of the family–even if I was the black sheep–and made me feel very appreciated. And I learned so much in my time there. I’d recommend it as an awesome place to work for any copy writer in the area who wanted to earn a competitive salary while building what will be a world-class brand one day. It’s an exciting place to work, so if you are interested in doing that, please let me know.

Within the pages of the Nashville Scene is a feature called “Public Art.” Usually it features a photo of something worth seeing about town, with an attempt at drollery or satire attached. This week’s “Public Art” is, for some reason, a take on Burning Man. Unfortunately, the feature this week falls flat because the can in question is, in fact, not a recycling bin. It’s a plain ol’ trash can. See the difference between the two below.

Somewhere the hippies, still rife with grime from their frolic in the desert, are laughing at least. Well, you know, they would be if they read the Scene.