The year’s just started, but we’ve an early, strong candidate for the worst blog post of 2014. Over at the Gazette, while working a white-collar job as editorialist and blogger in blue-collar Janesville, Greg Peck has a 1.7.14 entry entitled, My job is “stressful”? Well no kidding. Blogger Peck writes that a study…
Press
New Media, New Whitewater, Politics, Press
What the ‘Shock of Inclusion’ Means Locally
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
I posted yesterday on Clay Shirky’s Shock of Inclusion and New Roles for News in the Fabric of Society, published in 2010 and just as relevant today. His essay isn’t about local media especially, but his observations are useful to assess both local news and politics. Shirky writes about the collapse of a pipeline…
New Media, Press
Shirky’s ‘Shock of Inclusion’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
In 2010, Clay Shirky (then at Harvard, now at NYU) wrote about the changing nature of the news business, in a concise, insightful essay entitled, The Shock of Inclusion and New Roles for News in the Fabric of Society. It’s well-regarded and so has been oft-cited. These four calendar years later, it’s still the…
City, Local Government, Press
An Enduring Value of Local News
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One of the pleasures of reading local press accounts of a meeting in Whitewater is that through those stories one sees how local insiders want to be portrayed. It’s as close to an official’s Dear Diary entry as one is likely to find. Readers will discover clues to the concerns, preoccupations, and worries of…
Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Local Government, Press
The Gazette‘s Laughable, Damage-Control Editorial
by JOHN ADAMS • • 3 Comments
There’s an editorial at the Gazette today (http://gazettextra.com/article/20131122/ARTICLES/131129885/1034) predictably praising continued funding for Janesville’s transit bus to Whitewater. That there’s a bit of crowing in the editorial is unsurprising, but it’s more telling that it’s an error-prone essay that makes basic mistakes about Whitewater’s politics, and omits – perhaps intentionally – a description of the…
Beautiful Whitewater, City, Press
Whitewater as a Youthful Town
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Animals, Cats, Press, Weird Tales
Chicago Tribune Accidentally Puts Cat Photo on Homepage
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Freedom of Speech, Local Government, New Media, Press
Local News
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There’s a paywall up at Janesville’s GazetteXtra.com, with some content available for free, but much more local news now behind a paywall. I’ve no idea whether their effort will be a success, and the best one can say is that it will be tough going. Everyone at the paper surely sees that. In the end,…
Press
The Rolled-Up Newspaper
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
I was in a Whitewater establishment on Saturday, one that has hundreds of customers a day. On a counter easily visible to patrons sat a two-day-old newspaper, still unrolled and fastened with a rubber band just as when it had been first delivered. Perhaps someone only delivered Thursday’s paper on Saturday, or – alternatively –…
Government Spending, Local Government, Planning, Press
About that story on Whitewater’s East Gateway Proposal: What’s Missing?
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
On Tuesday afternoon, Whitewater’s officials held an informational meeting about a proposed public-works beautification project on the east side of the city. It’s not a new idea; those following politics in town for more than a few years would have heard about earlier discussions along these lines. On Wednesday, the Daily Union published a thousand-word…
Anderson, Cartoons & Comics, Government Spending, Local Government, Press
Details
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Local Government, Open Government, Press, Public Records
Biting the Hand That Fed Him
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Janesville City Manager Eric Levitt has decamped to Simi Valley, California. Readers will recall that Mr. Levitt touted the supposed benefits of a Generac-supporting ‘Innovation Express’ bus costing hundreds of thousands in public money. He kindly visited Whitewater last budget season to ask Whitewater taxpayers to kick in for a private company’s needs. (See, Whitewater’s…
Freedom of Speech, Press
Have you ever thought about becoming a publisher?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Local Government, Press
About the Administrator’s Equal Time…
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There’s a story at the Gazette from 1.5.13 about how Walworth County Administrator David Bretl’s columns started. The story’s odd, but the title’s odder: ‘Bretl writes columns as a self-check on county government.’ That’s funny, as the true check on government isn’t a so-called self-check from an administrator, but a check from the newspaper itself,…