Like Neil Young searching for a heart of gold, I’m growing old looking for blogs with a fraction of the content or the quality you guys produce. There are a few neighborhood and civic organizations starting to take to blogging. Clairmont Heights does an excellent job summarizing matters of consequence to their community. I’m trying to encourage more in DeKalb and leverage the benefit to everyone in a community via my CommunityRadar.com

As far as citizen journalism goes, the reason there’s so little quality (whether investigative or not) is because it ain’t easy! I’ve managed to publish what I consider a couple of quality items in the past year (see shameless plugs below) and none of them was a 30-second effort, trust me. We may be asking too much of “the citizenry” to produce the same level of journalism as the pros.

This doesn’t discourage me, though. I think that we are VERY early in the transition to the “new media” and I believe when the dust settles we will still have a diversity of print, broadcast, and internet news sources.

The biggest change isn’t just who is producing the content, it is that each individual now has the privilege (responsibility?) to make consumption choices.

Shameless plugs below=============

DeKalb School System as Mr. Potato Head?

Executive Park Plan Evolves as Described in Public Meeting

Cortland’s Symphony Park Taking Shape

The loss of ad revenue has been killing newspapers for most of the 21st century, the current recession has only made it worse. In that time, local coverage, like so many other sections (book reviews, arts…) have also taken huge hits. I simultaneously lament the loss of good investigative reporting and a broader range of topics (not to mention the hardcopy), and also wonder where are all the local blogs.

DM, it may not be case by case, but I am not yet convinced. It is probably not a coincidence that the dire warnings of losing news papers come now, in the teeth of a huge recession that is surely depressing ad revenues regardless of the effects of the internet. I have not studied this, of course, but there are newspappers out there that seem to be doing well, and others that are not.

I meant more at the federal and state levels re: TV. I also don’t really understand your point, DM. You claim the newspapers have let us down on local news anyway, creating a gap that blogs have to some extent filled. So from that perspective, who cares if the newspapers go away?