Greensboro, where I was over the weekend, is notable for its thriving blogging community. There are a lot of local bloggers who focus a great degree on local issues, and there's interaction with the local paper and candiates. Greensboro101 is the aggregator, and they're even trying (and succeeding) to sell ads to local businesses, something not all that appropriate for a "national" blog.
The emergence and growth of "local blogging" is I think the vital next step for a variety of reasons which I'll get around to discussing eventually. First, I started to think about what local bloggers can contribute to local media, which led me to start thinking about what was lacking in my local media - what I wanted from the local newspapers that I'm not getting.
What I would like in my fantasy newspaper is a paper which tells the story of Philadelphia. As with any city or town, big or small, it's like an epic novel with a giant cast of characters. There are villains and heroes, the powerful and the weak, rising stars and has-beens. The characters aren't just people, they're also institutions and neighborhoods and buildings and streets and buses. Everyone and everything has a fascinating backstory, and new characters enter all the time. There's politics and crime and gossip and intrigue and tragedy. A great newspaper would be telling a great story, with a new eagerly awaited chapter every day. I want to read that story, and it's not being told comprehensively enough.
