Today, the Seattle Times announced a unique new partnership with some of Seattle’s “most respected neighborhood news Web sites”, including the West Seattle Blog, My Ballard, Capitol Hill Seattle and the Rainier Valley Post.
The overall goals of the one-year alliance are to explore new ways to broaden news gathering capabilities and further connections within the community:
“These sites have grown and built a community of people around them,” said Bob Payne, director of communities for seattletimes.com. “We realized there are ways we can help each other meet our readers’ needs, building off the strengths of The Times and the Web sites to provide more complete neighborhood news coverage.” Read more.
The partnership is part of a nationwide Networked Journalism pilot project made possible by American University’s J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism and funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Who to know, where to eat & what to do in one of America’s most diverse zip codes!
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What an honor, Amber! Hard work pays off. Many congratulations.
This is an important next step in the evolution of new media. Congrats and good luck, RVP. Looking forward to what you both can bring to each other’s party.
The Knight Foundation > Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies > Carnegie Corporation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Ford Foundation.
More complete coverage? More democractic coverage? Or maybe… more controlled local coverage.
No thanks. I like the RVP just the way it is.
It’s a pity that it had to be with the more conservative of the two major “newspapers” left in Seattle, but I’m really happy to see some bigger news organizations realize the importance of actual local reporting. Here’s hoping they don’t try to wrestle control away from our beloved RVP in the name of profit.
Chris, is the “other” one the Stranger? I think there’s been a rift between them and the SE for awhile now. If it’s another one, what is it?
My fear isn’t that they’d try to wrestle control away but that the RVP may want to GIVE it away in the hope of making more money or having a bigger slice.
But I doubt that would happen. I truly have a bunch of respect for this rag.
Funny I actually saw this in the times first.
:snorts: So they finally wised up and realized that the micro-news world was where it was at, eh?
I’ve been considering RVP the most complete and reliable news source in our neighborhood, so it is very impressive to see that Seattle Times wants to tap into what you’ve developed through your community ties. Good luck making the partnership a strong one.
After seeing the PI.com begging for free neighborhood bloggers, and KOMOs sad attempt at their “[insert neighborhood here] Blog” network, it’s nice to see a big-media body get it right, or at least go in the right direction when it comes to neighborhood news coverage.
I hope they don’t publish blog articles in their site and paper without fact-checking and editing though.
I also hope that the writers on this blog will get at least a small stipend for their work. As a writer myself, I know the amount of time and effort that goes into reporting factual information. Let’s hope this partnership is profitable for our neighborhood blog as well as the TImes.
Great idea, RVP! Congratulations on this big next step.
Congratulations Amber. I read the post daily to see what is going on in my community. I find it informative and accurate. Finally the hard work is beginning to pay off. It also gives the community an easy way of expressing their opinion.
After reading the last two articles in the Times that highlighted Rainier Valley (25 year old crime solved, #7) that were either stereotypical or flat-out insulting, this is great news.
It’s about time big media recognized all of the hard work that neighborhood blogs do. All they do is show up with their big microphones in your face.
Congratulations! I love the Rainier Valley Post, and I check it several times a day to see what is going on. This is a great opportunity to show Seattle what a rich, interesting and diverse neighborhood we have here.
How does this work, will the Times have editing rights? Hope not.
We posted the Aaron Sullivan Weapons Ban Facebook Page yesterday. We need people to click on as fans. The strategy sessions are growing along with coalitions. Last night we had interesting cultural mix that made for very interesting exchange. Even had an ex-cop join us an I learned more about bullets than I knew there was to learn. Also we ended with an hilarious magic show of card tricks and Senator Adam Kline joined us and we made nice. He still is wondering how his quarter got into that box. Great trick.
The Times, editing rights over you know who??? I don’t think so. Unless this is a game of catch a lion by the tail…
Big thanks to everyone who’s taken the time to comment on this exciting new development.
For those of you who are wondering, your humble editor retains full editorial control of your RVP.
I have much to say on the topic via an upcoming Letter From the Editor. Look for it to published soon.
Cheers,
amber
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