February 06, 2004

(Updated) 'Oregonian' Public Editor Launches Weblog

Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.

This is quite remarkable timing. It was no more than a couple of weeks ago that we were reading one of Michael Arrieta-Walden's "public editor" columns in The Sunday Oregonian and musing that any newspaper ombudsman that truly wanted to serve the function of that position should have a weblog.

Lo and behold, our mental brainstorm seems to have reverberated into the local media cosmos, because this past Sunday, Arrieta-Walden indeed launched a weblog on OregonLive:

Welcome to the Public Editor blog. I am Michael Arrieta-Walden and as public editor of The Oregonian I seek to answer reader concerns and questions about the newspaper. My hope in starting this experimental blog is to address more readers, more often than my weekly column affords.

Kudos and hoorays to Arrieta-Walden and whoever else at The Oregonian moved to implement this. Expect us to keep a close eye on how his Public Editor weblog progresses, and we welcome him to the fold.

February 06, 2004

Update

Over in the comments in the New Media Musings item on this, a reader laments that the weblog in question has no comment functionality.

This is certainly a drawback. To my knowledge, no Advance newspaper weblogs have comment functionality, and as near as I can tell this is because they want readers to use the discussion forums elsewhere on the websites in question. The functionality is certainly there, because Advance appears to use Movable Type rather than any in-house weblog software; they simply haven't turned on that functionality.

At least they have permalinks.

Meanwhile, this was also picked up by E-Media Tidbits.

Posted at 12:33 AM | PermalinkComments (8) | TrackBacks (1)
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Comments (8)

  1. mph on 06 Feb 2004

    Too bad there's no RSS/RDF/Atom/whateverthehell feed for it. Sources that require an actual bookmark are so 2002. :-)

  2. The One True b!X on 06 Feb 2004

    Hey, at least it has permalinks.

    And for what it's worth, I hate RSS aggregators. I keep trying them and they have been of no use to me whatsoever. The closest I come is checking ORblogs every once in a while, which has the added advantage of sometimes coming across bits I would not have ever found if I was simply subscribing to feeds I knew in advance I have some sort of interest in.

    Not that they shouldn't have a feed. They should.

    But at least they have permalinks.

  3. Betsy on 06 Feb 2004

    What's interesting here is that Advance.net's president has a very active personal blog of his own, and definitely knows/'gets' blogging. He's also had things to say about getting the New York Times' public editor, Dan Okrent, blogging/interacting more closely with the reading public - and not in a one-way broadcast formula that the blog on OregonLive is currently implemented as.

  4. The One True b!X on 06 Feb 2004

    Personally, I continue to assert that if Jarvis truly "got" weblogs, his newspaper websites would not be as unwieldly as they are and their article links would not expire.

  5. Betsy on 06 Feb 2004

    As much as I'd like to agree with you (especially on article links), you're comparing apples and oranges.

    The newspaper site is, ultimately, about making money, and those archives are worth money, either through Nexis, Factiva or those folks who will pony up 2 bucks or so for a single reprint.

    Not to mention the whole 'giving the milk away for free' angle when trying to get people to pony up for a print subscription...

    I think it's (the public editor weblog) an interesting gimmick, but it's only worth paying attention to if there's some attempt at conversation (via email, if nothing else) instead of monologue.

  6. The One True b!X on 06 Feb 2004

    Well, this matter of how newspapers deal with their stories online is one of those issues of much dispute amongst people who write weblogs. Partially because as links die, the value of weblog items which point to them decreases because readers can no longer click through and see the original material for themselves. And I still question whether or not anyone ever bothers to pay to see Oregonian archives, for example -- especially since you can get them online for free with a Multnomah County library card.

    As for the question of gimmicks, only time will tell on that one. But even with a monologue slant, an ombudsman weblog would still open the door for more analysis of a newspaper's processes than is permitted through a weekly column.

    In theory, anyway.

  7. no one in particular on 07 Feb 2004

    And I still question whether or not anyone ever bothers to pay to see Oregonian archives, for example -- especially since you can get them online for free with a Multnomah County library card.

    Yeah, but I'm sure the Multnomah County Library pays for those archives. They come from the "NewsBank InfoWeb" database (at least the ones I found) along with 10 other papers. I'm sure the Library pays for that database and NewsBank, in turn, pays the Oregonian...

    Thanks for the tip on that, anyway. I was wondering where I could get a copy of the article about my SMS Protest Network thing, and it never occured to me to check the library website for some reason...

  8. The One True b!X on 07 Feb 2004

    "Yeah, but I'm sure the Multnomah County Library pays for those archives."

    Sure. My only point was that if someone else is already paying to give people access, why bother paying The O directly to get into their archives?

Trackbacks (1)

  1. Johnny-come-lately on 06 Feb 2004

    Hot news from Bix: The public editor of The Oregonian has started a blog....