Local recognition
Well, I was out of the office for a few days, and not only did I have a bunch of “comment spam” to clean up, but I missed the South Bend Tribune’s feature on Indiana blogs. I knew the article coming as Sydney Schwartz contacted me last month about this blog. No quotes of mine appear in the feature, but Doug Masson, Marty Lucas and I do get passing mention. The article’s focus was tied into independence day:
Web logs have become a new political forum in our area, allowing individuals to speak their minds, comment on local and national issues, and connect with Web surfers with similar interests. Local Web logs deal with legal, environmental and educational issues, as well as writers’ personal affairs.So, while contemporary Americans often are criticized for their apathy, a question for this Independence Day is: Will blogs become the new town hall meeting?
The article also contains the usual critiques of blogs, that they can contain misinformation, and poorly thought out content. I never understand this criticism. Any of us at any given time are prone to making mistakes or making undigested comments. That’s why we learn to listen to people and think for ourselves. The old idea that “media outlets” are the official record, and all we needed to do was tune in and be told what happened and what we should think about it is an improper measure of blog contents. I doubt too many people approach any information outlet, be it a newspaper, TV news, or a weblog, with unblinking optimism about the correctness of the content.
The feature provides a history of the blog, links to free blog creation sites, and this cool graphical map of local blogs: graphic
