Community Newspapers – Hear Them Roar

Okay, I know, I know. To some of you it’s not so exciting. But I’ve never been to D.C. Well, actually I was here once – driving through D.C. in 5:30pm traffic one Friday in 2005 after attending the first J-Lab Citizen Media Summit at the U. of Maryland in College Park. Everybody warned me to wait til morning but I didn’t listen and spent 2.5 hours seeing nothing of D.C. but hundreds of tail lights on the streets and highway in front of me. So this was really really exciting.

It’s not just about pictures of the White House and the U.S. Treasury, though. I just attended a NEXPO digital media session with Kate Marymont who just left Fort Meyers to join Gannett and Gina Wilcox at the Palm Beach Post and newly-trained News Journal mojo Rachel Kipp (www.delawareonline.com) talking about robust and interactive online newspaper ventures, as well as mobile delivery of news and advertising.

Now here I am, a total non-techie to the point of inept, non-geek, posting my blog. And these pictures were taken with my Treo. I didn’t do much but stick it through the iron bars surrounding the White House, hit the button and hope for the best. Now I’m on my laptop in my hotel room. I simply e-mailed the pictures to myself, saved them to my hard drive and then added them to this page.

If I can do it, anyone can do it. I’ll look at this blog a year from now and think “Oh my, was I a babe in the woods with this blogging thing. But as Rachel Kipp said today, “The best learning is hands on.” Who knows – before long you may be seeing video here. It could happen.

NEXPO details will be divulged in more detail when I write my article for the SNA Suburban Publisher newsletter (e-edition on the SNA site) but I’ll still give you daily bits and pieces here. And welcome your bits and pieces too – if you’re here.