Last week, ChicagoNow pulled a controversial post from popular blogger “Joe the Cop” after a day of protest personally led by Time Out Chicago editor-in-chief Frank Sennett. Sennett called Joe a racist on Twitter in a day-long stream of 100 tweets. I think the real question is whether that makes Sennett an Internet bully.
Media entrepreneur Geoff Dougherty ran two multimedia news ventures into the ground. Now, the embattled Chicago Reader has hired him as associate publisher. Maybe they didn’t read his press. Here’s a look at the track record the Reader’s new owners may have missed.
In Chicago, how people feel privately about the status quo and what they say about it in public are rarely the same. That applies to Chicago’s blogosphere, too. In a new-media space where dissent makes people run for cover, how can local bloggers hope to make change happen?
You can’t run a 21st-century blog network at the speed of a 19th-century newspaper. I wish someone would tell the Chicago Tribune. Here’s how institutional lethargy, inadequate tools, inscrutable navigation, and newsroom pushback make it hard to be a successful ChicagoNow blogger. (This post has now officially become the top-rated Windy Citizen story of all time.)
My ChicagoNow online-media byline, Chicagosphere, has been all good cheer this month. From the unexpected saving graces of a social-justice shoutout to a few local blogs and bloggers perfect for holiday browsing, there’s been a lot of festivity over on my Chicago Tribune-funded blog.
(Update 2/23/10) Today, Bill Leff relinquished his weekend gig as host of WGN’s ChicagoNow Radio. Here’s a look back at my experience with Leff and his former radio show from last November. Back then, an angry Leff told me I was ‘replaceable’ a minute before air time. Ah, karma.
While I settle down from the throttling I got from my fellow Mac users over my recently announced decision to migrate to Windows 7, here’s a look at the no-less debate-worthy topics I’ve covered lately on Chicagosphere, my byline about the local blogosphere on the Chicago Tribune’s ChicagoNow network.
On Chicagosphere I asked whether the Chicago Sun-Times union truly understands the endgame faced by their paper and journalism in general, calling out the Chicago Reader’s Michael Miner along the way for suggesting that columnists be forced to ditch commentary in favor of strict news analysis. There’s nothing I find more tiresome than yet another reporter throwing the rest of the world under the bus for the failings of their own field.
I’ve covered some interesting items in the past few weeks on Chicagosphere, my blog about Windy City blogs on the Tribune’s ChicagoNow online network. The network is still in beta, but the community is thriving and I’d love you to come be a part of it.
We’re having some fun now over on Chicagosphere, the blog about Windy City blogs I launched on the Tribune’s ChicagoNow blog network last month. If you haven’t yet, come on over and check out what I and my fellow CN scribes have been getting up to. Here’s a sampling of what I’ve covered most recently on Chicagosphere.