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Forum Home | Feed Tacoma | Requests / FeedbackNeighborhood blogs featured on KUOW
 by GoodLifeNW on 7/1/2008 @ 10:33am |
Hello to all Tacoma bloggers! Here's something you would be interested in. . . Yesterday KUOW 94.9 FM did a feature on Neighborhood Blogs during the 9 AM hour of the program Weekday, hosted by Steve Scher. It's still archived and you can listen to it through this web address: www.kuow.org/program Click on "Recent Shows" and then Neighborhood Blogs" from 6/30. I listened with great interest to several guest bloggers from the Seattle area and the man who started OlyBlog, but was appalled that there wasn't a single mention of Tacoma and FeedTacoma.com, Exit 133, or individuals like Scott Fontaine from the TNT with his cool "Word on the Street". Today I'm planning to contact the host, Mr. Scher, and tell him about the vibrant and vital community of bloggers in our great city of Tacoma. Maybe some of you would like to do the same. Who knows? He may decide to do a future story on us! I would encourage all of you to listen to the archived program because it touches on a lot of topics that concern all of us, as well as our readers. A few of these were such things as the function of neighborhood blogs in the world of journalism, their place in, what I believe he referred to as, the "newscape" or something like that. Of course there are all kinds of blogs, and this show dealt mainly with those whose primary purpose is the dissemination of news and information on a very, very LOCAL level. Since this is a fairly new phenomenon it raises interesting questions. A few of my own are: What responsibilities do we bloggers have toward the public, in terms of accuracy, fairness, etc.? Are blogs just a way to spout off our opinions, or, if we choose for ourselves to function as "reporters", how opinionated should we be? What about times when comments could be made without knowing all sides of an issue, that might cause others a great deal of pain, embarrassment, harm, etc.? What about legal concerns such as slander? Where does freedom of speech cross the line into bad taste or simply gossip? Are we just venting (which is still valid) or do blogs serve a greater purpose? Should they? How do you see your blog when it comes to building "community"? Personally I think the beauty of blogs is that they are rather raw and untamed, but that carries it's own risks. Without showing their faces, people lay it all out there for others to read, sometimes, in my opinion, at the cost of embarrassing themselves. It's all very revealing. It's interesting that in this high-tech age, while we sit at home alone at our computers, we humans are demonstrating a stronger-than-ever need to feel connected to each other. Cyberspace is now functioning as the village green and we bloggers are the village criers, with an eager audience for our news, opinions, insights, etc. We teeter on the line between the satisfaction of seeing our views in print and, at least in my opinion, some kind of responsibility. It's a new area for debate. Shall we? Regards, Candace goodlifenw.blogspot.com |
 by Nick on 7/1/2008 @ 11:09am | Actually, he has done a show that specifically featured Tacoma, and Exit133 has been featured on KUOW at least two times that I know of. Still, a discussion about neighborhood blogs that includes the Seattle and Olympia areas really makes Tacoma the 800 pound gorilla in the room.
The omission of Tacoma notwithstanding, I agree it was a great discussion. I caught the tail end of it running errands yesterday and wished I had time to listen to the whole thing (and now I can :-) thanks for the link!). |
by GoodLifeNW on 7/1/2008 @ 12:22pm | Thanks for writing Nick. I guess I owe Mr. Scher an apology then. I sent him a friendly note this morning to tell him about what's happening here, but I didn't know about the past coverage on his show. It must have been before I became involved with this whole blogging business and the great community of people in Tacoma that participate in it. You're right though, it seems odd that we were left out of the picture, when Olympia was included. But then so were many other Puget Sound area cities. Anyway, the show was still of value. |
 by NineInchNachos on 7/1/2008 @ 1:17pm | here is a direct link to the MP3 |
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