The Media Internet revolution: Version 3.0

We believe in the nimble, street-level approach to collecting news. We hope to offer great writing from seasoned journalists as well as fledgling reporting from citizens who agree to cover public meetings. Life is a Journey, and we are unfurling our sails.

Mary Serreze
Publisher, Northampton Media

This is how the seasoned Gadfly/Journalist/Information Technology guru turned Publisher described Northampton Media upon its recent September 15 launch. When asked what motivated the new on line endeavor, she enthusiastic replied: “I felt compelled--I couldn’t help it! I love the city of Northampton and felt the local daily newspapers were not doing their job covering local politics.”

With an "angel investor" providing $5,000 and a plethora of free advice from experts who had made the transition from print to Internet bandwidth, combined with her three-year experience doing IT development for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton Media can easily become the poster child for local Citizens Journalism in the Digital Age.

Serreze almost sounds as though she is taking this on-line journalism course, as she describes her role as a "curator and aggregater" of all things Northampton, freely linking to news articles in the Springfield Republican and radio station WHMP, and others not hidden behind a paywall.

Her goal is to make Northampton Media a “One stop shopping experience for fans of Northampton news.” She starts every morning doing a Google news search for anything concerning her adopted City of Northampton, where she has lived for twenty years.

The website already displays links to 25 local blogs (including mine) on the home page and photos or video accompany all posts (bordering on daily). A volunteer Arts/Entertainment editor starts work soon to diversify the offerings and make the site more mainstream.

Northampton Media is still a work in progress as Serreze says she launched a little early in order to closely cover the recent November 3 Northampton Mayoral election which certainly was one of the more contentious and as a result most interesting over the past dozen years.

The website is a step up from her blog as she feels that bloggers have undeservedly gotten a bad rap when it comes to journalism, so this new platform slightly disassociates from the term but still relies on the instant ability to post writing, photos, video and color graphics pioneered by Wordpress and Blogger.
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While online since 1999 the Daily Hampshire Gazette has not embraced the Citizen Journalism movement, although editor Noah Hoffenberg says it is “not harmful or threatening to mainstream media.” In fact, he even went as far as saying it was a “good thing” citing “more people involved leads to a divergent perspective and opinions.”

The Gazette currently uses no outside bloggers or Citizen Journalists and doesn’t plan to in the near future. When they rolled out a major revamp of their website last year they had a half-dozen in house blogs from staff and editors but only the youngish sportswriter (former Daily Collegian writer) Matt Vautour seems to have thrived using the medium.

The Gazette is still very much a bricks-and-mortar newspaper (circulation about 20,000) and the website (about 1,000 subscribers) an afterthought. They layout/build the print edition first and then export to the web. But with their pedigree perhaps it is little wonder: The Daily Hampshire Gazette is one of the oldest papers in the nation first coming off the printing press in 1786.

And a recent $10 to $12 million investment in a new Italian four-color process printing press and the extensive renovation required to house it at their Conz Street, Northampton location underscores their continued faith in the printing press.

Although the building expansion/renovation seems not to have impressed former long-time editor and now publisher of downstreet.net Ed Shanahan, who quoted a local architect on his website last year: “I swear to God, that’s the first building that’s ever scared me.”

The Gazette continues to consider the Springfield Republican newspaper as their main competition, as two years ago they switched from an afternoon distribution to the early morning to match their rival.

And while they abandoned the idea of a Sunday edition they slightly revamped the Saturday edition (with the highest circulation of the week) and call it the "Weekend edition."

The Gazette also saw major changes four years ago when purchased by Newspapers of New England, a private company owned by folks with ink in their veins.

When I asked editor Hoffenberg why they simply do not issue digital cameras to reporters to go along with company issued laptops, he responded that it was a "quality" issue. Citizen Journalist or blog photos often do not look like the kind of photo that would pass muster for the Front Page.

Their staff photographers take photos and are good at it, their reporters write, and editors edit. Fair enough, but with all those layers to orchestrate immediacy is sacrificed--although in the last year or so they have gotten better with getting breaking news up on Gazettenet.

And although ensconced behind a paywall, they have recently started allowing non-subscribers to access articles that come up via a Google search. So they are, at least, starting to get it.

Conventional wisdom claims you "can't teach an old dog new tricks." With Northampton Media now nipping at their flank, the Gazette may want to take a refresher course in Internet news distribution.

Especially since they can conveniently do it on-line.

Sign sign everywhere a sign

Blocking out the scenery breaking my mind / Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign

So this large sign out by state owned Rt 116 coming into North Amherst goes one better on copyright "fair use" borrowing. Not only the white on blue and same font but also the cute little graphics (I like the martini glass).

But the sign is (just barely) on private property owned by the Jones family, Amherst's ninth generation entrepreneurs extraordinaire. And if Cinda Jones can get the Town Manager to publicly belly dance at a Chamber of Commerce gala it doesn't surprise me she could jump through all the hoops required to get this sign up--even in the People's Republic.

I'm just a tad surprised she followed the state's half-assed concept of making them only one sided.

A tale of two signs

So four years ago when the town ripped off the state's design logo for signage (that Mass charges $1,200 annually per location) Hickory Ridge Golf Course was paying for this sign in South Amherst, but Cherry Hill in North Amherst got theirs for free (two of them).

May sound like a minor competitive advantage, but another major one is Hickory Ridge pays the town over $17,000 annually in property taxes while Cherry Hill pays zero. Even the 9-hole Amherst Golf Course, owed by tax-exempt Amherst College pays over $7,000 annually in property taxes.


Just another hidden cost of our municipal white elephant.

Let's break out the booze and have a ball

The Lord Jeffery Inn

I owe you a draft beer Mr Marx, payable on opening night spring, 2011 at the Boltwood Tavern--assuming the newly renovated Lord Jeff Inn keeps the concept of a low-key, relatively inexpensive pub as part of the fancy more expensive Inn with rooms and fine dining.

Okay maybe it's not the ultra ritzy $24-30 million renovation originally planned, but I'll take a lousy $14 million anytime (seven times the current assessed value). Just get her opened again!

In addition to bringing folks to the downtown the Inn will pay significantly more property taxes (currently $30,000) increasing by a factor of 5 or 6. And they will also pay the newly increased lodging tax and meals tax. All in all, a bonanza for the town tax coffers and a much needed shot in the arm for downtown economic development.

All hail the purple and white!
Boltwood Tavern

When the State breaks trust

When Town Manager Larry Shaffer signed a 5-year Strategic Agreement with Umass for roughly $100,000 more than they had been paying Amherst for fire/ambulance protection the year before, he allowed them to take credit for the $100,000 Payment in lieu of Taxes Amherst receives from a separate account out of Boston.

Now, however, the Governor is talking about cutting that amount by $65,000. If so can we bill Umass directly--or take it out of the Town Manager’s pay?

Gotta love local TV journalism

Okay, so let's forget attractive young cub TV reporter Jackie Bruno (in a C+ market area) botched Umass President Jack Wilson's surname (not Williams); and how the NJ State Trooper was killed (not by a bomb but by a handgun.) or the assault on two Mass State Troopers (also from firearms not bombs.)

And she probably could/should have pointed out Levasseur was MIA when the despicable deed of gunning down that NJ peace officer occurred.

But I'm actually glad that Umass Prof Sarah Lennox "admitted" she did not "know much about this case at all." Neither did I, when first getting involved. Because, like Professor Lennox, I agree that Academic Freedom and Free Speech are SACRED.

Of the 200+ media articles carried on Google News one of them quotes Mrs. Raymond Luc Levasseur saying the violence was not "terrorism" but "sabotage." As Commander Spock would say "fascinating".

Terrorism is exactly what the word implies: do as much possible damage, slaughter as many innocent people in the most heinous way possible--preferably at the beginning of a news cycle designed for peak media broadcast. And, better yet, repeat the act a few moments later--because if you execute the first part properly, NOW the entire world is watching.

Sabotage means to incapacitate in a sneaky sort of way (although that could indeed cause human casualties) the opposition's machinery. But the attack focuses on the physical infrastructure--not the flesh and blood component.

Big difference. Very B-I-G!

A proud tradition indeed

(9:00 PM ) So tonight the forces of fear and oppression won out, and all of us are microscopically worse off.

The academic forum on a twenty-year-old sedition trial where the main culprit was acquitted, but served 18 years on other charges did go off tonight at Umass...without, however, the main culprit. At the the 11Th hour his parole person suddenly decided that to exercise his First Amendment rights in the great state of Massachusetts (where the war for liberty first started) could violate his parole.

Umass police--including the Chief--were out in force, as was the media. I arrived about two minutes after the 7:15 PM start time (as I had to teach my wife's karate class at the Club) and the room was already sealed. It will be interesting to see how the local and Boston TV stations who turned out with the their very expensive satellite trucks handle this now-turned-non-story.

Sure, about 100-150 off duty cops showed up to hold signs. Fair enough. Ironically they were peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights. Something they managed to deny Raymond Luc Levasseur.