FortBendNow is Back
The server gods have turned their knobs and got the steam engine working that in turn powers up FortBendNow.
Back to the drawing board!
→ B.Dunn, Jul 18, 2007, 07 04 am
Stirring The Soup In A Stranger's Kitchen
It feels strange posting here; I’ve been so busy writing news at FortBendNow that posting here almost makes me feel like I’ve snuck into a stranger’s kitchen and found her laptop on the table. Here I am puttering in someone else’s house.
Yesterday evening I finished a day-long wait for a lawsuit I’d been tipped would be filed, in an attempt by the Texas Democrats to throw a monkey wrench into the Republicans’ post-Tom DeLay clockworks.
Earlier in the day DeLay had been declared ineligible by the state GOP to run for Congress again, on the ballot in November. This is something he desired; he’s resigning from the House today.
After writing the ineligibility story, there was DeLay’s farewell speech. Then came the lawsuit. So this is our Tom DeLay issue.
If it wasn’t him, it’d be something else.
I’d say I wind up writing an average of six stories a day for FortBendNow, sometimes more. Assistants usually provide a couple more a day. It’s all local news in Fort Bend County. There is a lot going on here. Much more than people realize.
Which is why we started FortBendNow. Because it’s a web publication, we have the space to devote to as much news and information as is relevant to the community.
Now we’re working on providing more time to create the stuff that fills the space.
By that I mean, we’ll begin adding staff. We think we’ll be able to afford that because we’re beginning to sell advertising. The ad sales should increase in coming weeks because, as might be expected, we’re hiring ad salespeople.
We think the ad sales should do well, because there are now a fairly significant number of people visiting the site each day – approaching an average of 2,000 unique visitors a day. And they’re reading an average of more than nine pages per visit, which indicates high interest in local news.
If those numbers don’t sound like much, give us time. We’ve been growing by more than 30% per month.
The more people visit, the more they comment and provide their own perspective on the news. Sometimes I find the comments after a story a lot more enlightening than the story itself.
The other great by-product of a growing audience is the bounty of news tips we’re receiving. That helps us in our role as the eyes and ears of the public. For instance, it allowed the parents of Fort Bend Independent School District students to learn the probable state accountability rating of their kids’ schools earlier this week, even though district administrators were trying to keep the information to themselves, for whatever reasons, until at least August.
And it allowed the residents of little old Fort Bend County to find out before the rest of the state about the Democrats suing, oddly enough, to keep a prominent Republican on the congressional ballot.
All in all, we believe FortBendNow is off to a good start, but it’s just the beginning. There’s a lot of new sections to create, coverage to be broadened and growing pains to be experienced.
Probably that means I’m going to continue to feel like a stranger in my own writing kitchen here, too.
→ B.Dunn, Jun 09, 2006, 08 12 am
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Merry Old Month
You still can eat out on the taqueria patios or sit in the shade and watch the river flow in early May, without getting zapped to hard by the sun. At least some of the time.
The althea’s in bloom, the bananas are in bloom, the tomatoes are green and approaching tennis-ball size, the peppers are flowering, the figs are half-sized, the hibiscus are flowering like mad and we still don’t have mosquitos.
The rosemary and oregano and Italian parsley and mint and basil all are primo. The cilantro is going to seed, but hey.
What else could you ask for?
I remain busy the better part of seven days a week, scribing for FortBendNow, keeping track of the final days of Tom DeLay, and the boiling cauldron also known as the Fort Bend Independent School District.
FortBendNow traffic is up substantially, thanks in part (if I do say so myself) superior news coverage, especially politics, in what is by any measure a whacky political season.
Now we finally have a substantial local audience, growth is vigorous, and we’re about to make a push for local business advertising.
And – don’t tell anyone yet – free classified ads. Apparently, we must be crazy.
→ B.Dunn, May 09, 2006, 07 35 pm
Up For Air
Everything’s been neglected around here – the garden, the yard, the dog, this blog, even the kids.
I’ve had my head down kludging computer code together (I’m too much of a hack to call myself a programmer) for a project I’ve kept pretty much under wraps for months.
Now I think it’s time to take off the cover.
Please feel free to take a tour of FortBendNow, a venture that likely will consume most of my time for years to come.
It’s an attempt to solve a couple of problems that have puzzled me for many years.
No. 1: Why is it that Americans can find a dozen different news reports each day on the intimate dealings coming out of Washington, Baghdad and the National Football League, but we can’t find out what happened last night at the city council meeting down the street?
No. 2: Why isn’t everyone getting his or her news from the Internet instead of a TV (where “news” only shows up twice a day) or a newspaper (where “news” shows up several hours after it’s already “olds”)?
A web-based news operation (should) give the reader the ability to find out about an event very shortly after it actually occurs. And web-based news reports can be presented in whatever length (and via whatever medium) is needed to convey all necessary information to the reader. Because a web news operation doesn’t have to deal with the huge cost of newsprint, and isn’t being pressured to shorten its broadcast to make room for more advertising.
Helping people really find out what’s going on in their neighborhoods and communities is a challenge, and to make it work, I believe it’s time to dump the old model. It’s no longer good enough to let a handful of old men with journalism degrees (and a list of the publisher’s sacred cows) decide what news the public should be able to see. In fact, I don’t think that model was ever good enough.
Here’s the reality of news delivery outside of America’s major markets, in places like Fort Bend County:
First of all, the only source of local news anymore is one or two small daily or weekly newspapers. That’s because virtually all of this country’s radio and TV stations are owned by a handful of big corporations with homogenized programming, who charge so much for their ad time that only national companies can afford the rates. So the broadcast monopolists confine themselves to the major markets, such as Houston. Ditto for the big-market newspapers, which also are all owned by a handful of monopolists.
Even the local daily or weekly papers are mostly owned by small-market monopolies – corporations with chains of little cookie-cutter papers spread through a region.
These papers still deliver their main product on newsprint, meaning they have to absorb a huge daily or weekly cost, which they usually offset by making sure not very many people draw salaries in the newsroom. So they’ll employ three or four reporters – even in an area the size of Fort Bend County, with nearly a half-million people.
That’s enough people to report on two car wrecks, one arrest, a court hearing and maybe cursory coverage of a public meeting. Newsprint costs money, so most of those reports will eat up a total of 10 inches of space or less. Add a couple of wedding announcements and the day’s obits, and that’s all you get.
I think there’s a better way: Turn the news operation over to the people whose community you’re attempting to cover. Let people with experience in a particular area cover their area of expertise. As long as they can express themselves well in writing and are willing to strive for fairness and objectivity, it seems to me that the community will be well served.
If 100 such community journalists emerge to act as the eyes and ears of Fort Bend County, aren’t we all going to be better off and better able to make good decisions about our government and our schools and our lives?
I suspect the answer just might be yes.
Anyhow, that’s what I’ve been up to lately.
Give it a look and let me know what you think.
→ B.Dunn, Sep 15, 2005, 08 07 am