Dayhoff Westminster Soundtrack: Media Baltimore Brew

Showing posts with label Media Baltimore Brew. Show all posts

Sunday, October 17, 2010

AOL’s Patch, a national chain of news websites, comes to the Baltimore ‘burbs

Will mass-producing community journalism like Big Macs slay it or save it? (A two-part Baltimore Brew special report.)

http://www.baltimorebrew.com/2010/10/13/18247/

Jason Policastro October 13, 2010 at 8:32 am Story Link 8 Comments and 16 Reactions

AOL is sinking nearly $50 million into Patch, a network of local news websites, including some in Baltimore suburbs.

Baltimore is used to having out-of-town companies gobble up its home-grown news operations. The ranks of the once- independent-and family-owned that are now media properties include The Baltimore Sun(Chicago-based Tribune Co.) and WJZ-TV (one of 28 stations owned by CBS Corp.)

But the latest deep-pocketed corporate ‘playa to muscle into the Baltimore media market, AOL, is taking a different approach. Rather than acquiring an existing entity, they’re quietly building online news operations from the ground up, in Towson and in two dozen other suburban Maryland communities. What they’re creating they callPatch.com, a national network of “hyperlocal” news sites aiming to fill the prodigious news holes created by shrinking traditional media.

In addition to TowsonPatch, there’s a Lutherville/TimoniumPatch andEllicottCityPatch, among the Maryland sites either scheduled or already publishing. Patches have also sprouted in affluent communities in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey and a growing list of other states...

[...]

Utopia? Dystopia?

Bryan Sears is the immediate past president of the Maryland Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and a well-known local political reporter in the Greater Baltimore area.

At points in a discussion about Patch, Sears seemed excited by the idea that a ripple effect from the chain’s rapid expansion could actually benefit journalists in search of jobs.

“There are media companies taking this very seriously. What happens if they [Patch] ramp up and put a lot of reporters in the area, and The [Baltimore] Sun or [Washington] Post decides it needs to respond in kind?” Sears said. “All of a sudden you’ve got yourself a 21st century newspaper war.”

At other moments, he has a reporter’s skepticism that Patch, or any company, has figured out a cure for what’s afflicting America’s Fourth Estate.

“There are two questions as I see it. One, it’s AOL, the same company that had Bebo, the social networking site that no one ever heard of. Have they learned from that?” Sears said. “Two, do they have some magic ju-ju that makes these Patch sites work that the others didn’t?”

In the end, Sears said, he welcomes the arrival of the Patch sites, even though they technically compete for readers with his paper.

“I’m excited about journalists getting good jobs and enjoying the work they’re doing,” he said, “and I refuse to believe that having more reporters on the beat is anything but good for the public.”

And, he added, “I plan on beating them as often as I can.”

[...]

http://www.baltimorebrew.com/2010/10/13/18247/

Media Baltimore Brew, Journalists Sears-Bryan, Media Baltimore, Media,

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Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Baltimore Brew has posted a new item, 'Laid-off by the Sun, journalists speak out on new wesbite'

Baltimore Brew has posted a new item, 'Laid-off by the Sun, journalists speak
out on new wesbite'

by FERN SHEN

As The Baltimore Sun's music critic, Rashod D. Ollison wrote bitingly and
brilliantly about a wide range of musical genres, praising the sublime and
skewering the schlocky with equal verve.

But it's safe to say Ollison never wrote anything quite as scathing and personal
as "The Invisible Black Homo Blues, reflections on my time at the Sun."

The essay was one of many in a new website released today, featuring
mini-memoirs, poems, photographs and other work by ex-Sun writers who got the
axe a year ago, when The Sun fired a third of the newsroom staff.

"Telling Our Stories: the Days of the Baltimore Sun" was sponsored by The
Writer's Guild, East Foundation, and implemented with the collaboration of the
Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. Following last April’s massive layoffs,
ex-Sun writers were offered fellowships to "to tell a story arising out of their
personal experiences during their time at The Baltimore Sun."

And some of them really cut loose......

You may view the latest post at
http://baltimorebrew.com/blog/2010/05/12/laid-off-by-the-sun-journalists-speak-out-on-new-wesbite/

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Thursday, April 01, 2010

Baltimore Brew to join Sarah Palin, Zig Ziglar, Michael Phelps and Michael Oher for Motivational Seminar

Baltimore Brew has posted a new item, 'Brew to join Sarah Palin, Zig Ziglar,
Michael Phelps and Michael Oher for Motivational Seminar'

by Brew Intern Sheila Dixon

Acknowledging that their flagging energy levels are hampering their ability to
cover Baltimore's pressing issues, the entire Brew staff today signed up for a
May 4 motivational seminar at 1st Mariner Arena.

Featured speakers include "America's Mayor," Rudolpoh Giuliani, former Redskins
coach Joe Gibbs, General Colin Powell, billionaire-publisher Steve Forbes,
Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps and former Alaska Governor and vice presidential
hopeful Sarah Palin.

"We need inspiration! It's beyond belief around here! We've got buildings
collapsing in Fells Point, sewage spilling all over downtown, oil rigs coming
to Ocean City and a Baltimore city council member showing reporters his
underwear drawer," said editor Fern Shen.

"And don't get me started on the lesbian-themed strip-club parties the
Republicans funded under the watch of our own former Lieutenant Governor," she
added. "We're talking about a club where the women have horse-bits in their
mouths and the patrons have cucumber sandwiches in theirs. Yuck!"

Shen acknowledged that today's date may have something to do with this post, but
pointed out that 90 percent of it is fact-based.

You may view the latest post at
http://baltimorebrew.com/blog/2010/04/01/brew-to-join-sarah-palin-zig-ziglar-michael-phelps-and-michael-oher-for-motivational-seminar/

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Sunday, February 14, 2010

[Baltimore Brew] LaHood: why feds were unimpressed with Maryland's high-speed rail bid

Baltimore Brew has posted a new item, 'LaHood: why feds were unimpressed with
Maryland's high-speed rail bid'

A recent interview with Ray LaHood, secretary of the U.S. Department of
Transportation, sheds more light on why Maryland and several other Northeast
states with substantial rail passenger needs got so little of the $8 billion in
federal stimulus money recently awarded for high-speed-rail projects.

LaHood said in the Huffington Post that the Obama administration looked [...]

You may view the latest post at
http://baltimorebrew.com/blog/2010/02/13/lahood-why-feds-were-unimpressed-with-marylands-high-speed-rail-bid/

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Sunday, January 17, 2010

'After visiting the courthouse, Baltimore writer wonders "Can we get free?"'

Baltimore Brew has posted a new item, 'After visiting the courthouse, Baltimore
writer wonders "Can we get free?"'

by R. DARRYL FOXWORTH

Doestoevsky astutely noted that the “degree of civilization in a society can
be judged by entering its prisons.”

I thought about that recently as I entered into the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr.
Courthouse, Circuit Court for Baltimore City.

My mother, an employee of the courts, imparted upon me a legitimate fear and
skepticism of the judicial system; I remember, as a youth, visiting her at work,
and witnessing the seemingly interminable line of young black men, handcuffed
and demoralized, being led into and, out of, various courtrooms. It rubbed me
wrong, it frightened me; I couldn’t allow that to be my fate.

You may view the latest post at
http://baltimorebrew.com/blog/2010/01/17/after-visiting-the-courthouse-baltimore-writer-wonders-can-we-get-free/

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Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Article on Buzz Aldrin in the Baltimore Brew

Baltimore Brew has posted a new item, 'Aldrin tells Baltimore audience his toughest mission came after he returned from the moon'

By FERN SHEN

He may have earned a PhD from MIT, had a lovable Pixar space ranger named after him, recorded a rap video with Snoop Dogg and had the dubious honor of being interviewed by Ali G but, really, large parts of Buzz Aldrin’s life after he walked on the moon in 1969 were pretty crummy, the astronaut-author told a rapt audience Saturday at the 2009 Baltimore Book Festival. If only selling Cadillacs in Beverly Hills (unsuccessfully) had been the worst of it....

You may view the latest post at http://baltimorebrew.com/blog/2009/09/29/aldrin-tells-baltimore-audience-his-toughest-mission-came-after-he-returned-from-the-moon/

20090929 sdosm article on Buzz Aldrin in the Baltimore Brew

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Sunday, August 16, 2009

Baltimore Brew: Despite cheapening the Red Line, the MTA suddenly finds 12,000 new daily riders by By GERALD NEILY

Baltimore Brew: Despite cheapening the Red Line, the MTA suddenly finds 12,000 new daily riders by By GERALD NEILY http://baltimorebrew.com/blog/?p=3992

The MTA spent years, millions and endless hours meeting with communities to produce the voluminous technical documents to support Tuesday’s decision by Gov. Martin O’Malley to build the Alt. 4C Red Line. Then agency officials sharpened their pencils, eliminated two stations, narrowed the Cooks Lane tunnel to a single reversible track and extended the other tunnel to avoid narrowing Boston Street, which is expected to have a huge increase in traffic.

But somehow, the transit ridership projection in the MTA’s just-released five page summary became a whopping 28 percent higher than the figure calculated in the lengthy Alternatives Analysis-Draft Environmental Impact Statement which forms the technical basis for the project — growing from 42,100 to 54,000 riders per day...

[...]

The additional ridership potential would have provided great justification for investment in the kinds of transit-oriented infrastructure that could truly transform the city, such as the City’s Inner Harbor street re-invention project, the Highlandtown Loft District, Leakin Park gateway and the BaltiMorphosis.com plan for Franklin-Mulberry.

Read the entire article here: http://baltimorebrew.com/blog/?p=3992

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