We’re pleased to see that the county generated a bountiful crop of blogs this summer, joining a couple of active old hands such as CanalSide. Having a cluster of independent writers covering the county provides people with information sources that challenge official accounts, sifts through rumors, and manages to do a little investigative journalism.
It all reminds us of old newspaper days (not all that long ago) when we’d rush to get our weekly papers crammed with local content, the type of material we couldn’t wait to read. Those old editors, who did some fine work, were anxious to dig into an issue and stir things up a little (just a little) in order to maintain subscriber interest. Publishers in that era were fine with such reporting. Gosh that must’ve been good for advertisers since careful scrutiny of the pages assured you’d glance at all those advertisements.
As we approach the end of the first decade of the 21th century, bloggers are filling the void at the top of the Chesapeake. You will notice the two citizen journalists covering the canal town (Chesapeake City Mirror started in July) are doing a fine job of bringing the news on home and allowing dialogue about controversial issues. The new one on the block, Cecil Times, which has been breaking stories elsewhere in the county, helps the C & D duo out periodically.
That sort of makes Someone Noticed lonely in the county seat, Cecil’s biggest town with 14,000 people, thinking about how a place with 700-residents generates enough news, controversy and dialogue to support two bloggers, with an occasional helping hand by another reporter. We sure could use another weblog or two helping bring out the “411 on Elkton,” or any other aspect of the community they want to focus on. For that matter, Someone Noticed would be happy to have a few of the contributions that have been mentioned by our enthusiastic local scribes, but somehow they never get pen to paper for full length pieces. If someone will report, Someone Noticed will certainly publish it here, provided it meets a very few basic guidelines.
We hope to see more citizen journalism blogs in Cecil, bringing the local news and commentary on home in the months ahead.
Someone Noticed 