The Future of Ann Arbor Journalism (WTKA audio)

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Local media behemoth John U. Bacon hosted this afternoon’s Big Show on WTKA, and the topic the entire show was the future of local journalism.  A variety a guests joined in on the discussion including co-host Richard Deistch of Sports Illustrated, former AA News columnist Jim Carty, Michigan associate AD Bruce Madej, Brian Cook of mgoblog and batting clean-up: me.

Tony Dearing, the man spearheading the AnnArbor.com roll-out, unfortunately didn’t make it into to the discussion but Bacon advised he has an open invitation.

As an aside, kindly Bacs let me plug the 2009 JDRF Golf Classic which will be held June 22, and you can find details here.  Please let me know if you have questions or are interested in participating, sponsoring or offering a donation.

I joined in the 5 o’clock hour; here’s the audio for those segments:

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Synopsis:
Segment 1: We talk about the value of newspapers and offer some advice for AnnArbor.com.

Segment 2:  Some discussion of how Brian uses and maintains an online community, blogging ethics, building a following, and we take a few calls.

Segment 3: A short wrap-up, with a thanks to Deistch for his participation on the show and my advice and outlook for AnnArbor.com, with a plea to Dearing to visit the show.

You can always check out the WTKA podcasts here.  Prior to me joining in studio, the other distinguished guests chimed in on these and other topics, check them out here:

Related: MVictors hits the Big Show (WTKA audio) – March 3, 2009 appearance

One Comment

  • Edward Vielmetti

    Good show.

    I think there’s a lot more to be said about the huge difference between the communities on newspaper sites vs. blogs. Slashdot did a huge amount of work to manage that, and even the simplest way to manage community content and not let the trolls take over is critical.

    What I think hasn’t been said quite enough is how some big part of the things that are online that aren’t quite news yet are shipped around via email, and how really good news sites have some kind of affiliated mailing lists to pull in content and push out to people who are not going to blog or read blogs.