On-line Local News Demand Will Grow

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I’m a news devotee—I admit it.  I keep the news on the radio while I’m working at home and get push notifications on my iPhone from both AP Mobile and the New York Times to keep up with what is going on around the globe.  I regularly watch NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, yet I never watch local news on television. 

However, over the past year, I have found myself fascinated by, and at times relying upon, local on-line news.  I often read Patch before I look at the world headlines.

What do I find so compelling? While watching a weather reporter leaning against the wind in a blizzard in the plain states can be entertaining, finding out when my power will be restored after a local blizzard is invaluable.  Knowing how housing sales are improving nationwide helps me gauge the national economy, but seeing local house sales is far more relevant.  Hearing that Spiderman is drawing huge audiences despite its dramatic glitches getting off the ground so to speak, is interesting.  Yet knowing when an author will appear at the local bookstore is pertinent to my personal entertainment schedule.

I don’t know if AOL will be successful with their business model for Patch, but I do know that there is an important need to be filled in providing local, relevant news to individuals on-line. Being able to post our own community announcements is a valuable and low-cost service if there is a critical mass of readers.  Hard to say if critical mass has yet been reached—it depends on your community.  Six million unique Patch readers is not an insignificant number, but it’s not the right number to consider when the value is all local.  How many readers can Patch or any other local news source garner in an individual community?

Regardless of who finds a compelling business model, I hope a local news offering continues.  I can use the global news to help me decide which leaders to vote for, improve my understanding of how unrest in the Mideast will affect the economy and  influence how I can help make the world a better place.  But I will be even more influenced by the local news to let me know when I can talk with my local leaders, point me in the direction of the lowest gas prices in town and give me an outlet to recruit volunteers and supporters for my local causes.

State of Wonder Book Group Discussion

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Discussion Guide for State of Wonder

By Ann Patchett

I enjoy leading book groups. When I lead, I write up a discussion guide to use. Feel free to ask your own questions or discuss your own observations or reactions in the comments section.

I have moved this discussion guide to my new blog, Group Reads which is a collection of discussion guides.  You can find a guide for this book at Group Reads: State of Wonder.

Stop by and see what other guides might interest you!

Newspaper Nostalgia

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The Sunday New York Times was not a ride and toss delivery route when I was a kid.  My dad drove me around in our station wagon and I got out at each house and carried the paper up each walkway, opened each screen door and carefully nestled the paper against each front door as I quietly closed the screen. The transition to adult paper deliverers aside, a child’s paper route is left to nostalgia as we pull out our iPads to read the morning news.

My husband is reading the New York Times.  I don’t hear the crinkle of paper as he flips the page though—he has been reading the Times on his iPad for over a year now.  It’s like having a newspaper press next to our bed without all of the cacophony of machinery. And we get the late, late edition—the ones only New Yorkers used to be able to get by stepping out in the cool night air and walking around the corner to their newsstand.

When I read a story on the iPad the headline stays consistent from the start to the end of the article—no need to flip to an interior page and hunt for the altered headline the editor deemed necessary to create.  Color photos are far more numerous than in the print edition and unless the printed paper has come direct from Hogwarts, it doesn’t have any of the videos I find in my iPad version.  I have never wanted to post a comment on an article, but having the opportunity is cool. 

Yet I miss using the well-taught lessons on how to properly share a newspaper that I learned at a very young age from my dad.  We had a pecking order on who could read which section when. My dad got first choice of sections, mom second, older siblings next and eventually the comics in our local paper worked their way into my hands. Equally importantly, I learned how to refold my section and place it neatly upon the pile of sections from the Sunday paper stacked by my dad’s living room chair.

I miss the heft of the Sunday New York Times and the nesting of its sections.  I miss watching my dad flip through each paper to ensure all sections were present. I wonder what new newspaper etiquette will be passed on to the next generation as they read the morning news on lazy Sunday mornings.