Tidying up the blog for the overnight hours, we noticed a new Cecil Times piece headlined “Whig Wakes Up Sort of.” It’s a subject that’s important to Someone Noticed too so we’ll clip part of it and link to the remainder of the article. The Cecil Whig has some of the finest reporters and news editors around for a small town daily. The executives simply need to let their writers and editors loose. They know how to ask challening questions, critique official statements, and investigate a little. Aggressive reporting is good for a community, helping to assure a balance and besides it keeps readers coming back. Let your writers loose and encourage them to dig beyond the press releases just a little. But enough from us since you’ve heard our take on this often.
Cecil Times – “Whig Wakes Up Sort of” – – – –
It is long overdue, but the Cecil Whig is finally waking up to the fact that it has online competition from local news bloggers that have frequently written about issues that the Whig either did not cover at all or did not publish in print or put online until a day or more later.
In the past few days, the Whig is starting to post, by mid-afternoon, an online summary of the stories its reporters are working on for the next day’s print edition. The Whig is also being more pro-active about posting online Associated Press items throughout the day. That’s not original reporting on the Whig’s part, but at least the updates give an impression of timeliness, even though one could easily obtain the same news from a constantly updated website like www.cnn.com
And, it is a measure of the Whig’s sudden, and belated, recognition of the increasing online competition in the current news/online marketplace, that they are starting to post news articles online before the next day’s print publication. [story continues on Cecil Times]
Someone Noticed 