Some of the best political blogs I’ve ever read are produced by Ohio bloggers. I think The Plain Dealer is smart to try to aggregate bloggers in its circulation area, so readers will get to them by going through Cleveland.com. I wanted to know what The Plain Dealer expected to gain, so I emailed Kroll on January 17, 2009. He responded within an hour, with the following:

One of the the traditional roles of newspapers is to create a common ground for the whole community. We want to bring that online. Cleveland.com   is the region's biggest and most popular site, so it just makes sense to host community-wide projects like this.

The more we can make Cleveland.com a community resource, the greater the likelihood we can continue to sustain the reporting that digs out  the truth and shares the good news. To do that, we have to acknowledge that we're not the only source of news and commentary. (This is one of  several moves we're making. Another is to increase our use of outside links to supplement our stories; the directory will help us find alternative voices.)

And, finally, we want to know what we're missing. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of interesting, well-written, informed blogs in the area. But most of them exist in bubbles, invisible beyond their small audiences. We would like to expand our knowledge of the talent in Northeast Ohio, and we think our readers would, too.

Note: This post can also be found at The Blogging Journalist, one of my other blogs.

If you are thinking about starting your own online news website or blog - or if you've already made that move, but wondering where the money will come from - please consider applying for the second edition of our News Entrepreneur Boot Camp.

That's right, we're doing the camp again. The Knight Digital Media Center, in cooperation with OJR and the Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at USC's Marshall School of Business as well as the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, will select a dozen or so journalists to travel to Los Angeles in mid-May for the camp. There, you will work together and in one-on-one consultation with camp faculty to hone plans for your project - and its financial success.

Niles said, "Lots of other journalism organizations have jumped on the entrepreneurship bandwagon recently. But long-time OJR readers know that I've been writing about entrepreneurial journalism for years, and that OJR put on what may have been the first industry conference solely devoted to the topic, back in 2006.”

Note: This item is also published at The Blogging Journalist, one of my other blogs.

If you want to read more, please see “MEXICO: Journalists' Options - Silence, Exile or the Grave.”

Journalism is not a particularly esteemed profession, but its capacity to bear witness remains one of its more redeeming attributes. At moments like this in Haiti, a journalist’s function as a witness can be relatively uncomplicated, in comparison to, say, the processes of political or investigative reporting. In the field during a natural disaster of this scale, you do feel at times ghoulish and intrusive upon both the grief of survivors and in relation to the more directly useful efforts of rescuers and humanitarian relief workers.

To read more, see “Earthquakes and Journalism.”

I wonder whether these critics would want Gupta to assist them if they were severely injured at an event he was covering. Would they want him to ignore them and continue reporting? I doubt it. Would they complain if he described the treatment he was giving them? Probably not unless they were purist.

Conclusion: Gupta can talk and provide medical care at the same time, if necessary.

To read more, please see “Critics question Post partnership.” Also see “Wash. Post turns news pages over to conservative billionaire Peterson's news service” and  “The Fiscal Times to Launch in Early 2010”

For an article from The Fiscal Times, see “Support grows for tackling nation's debt.”

I think number 10 is highly relevant for any newspaper trying to stay afloat, especially newspapers in smaller markets. It reads:

10. Learning to change. To keep up with the pace of change, we have had to temper our perfectionist tendencies. Instead of spending months fine-tuning every small change, we prefer to launch “pilot projects.” When we decided to start producing videos, for instance, we simply bought a camera and asked our photographers to experiment with it. Sometimes they brought back usable videos; sometimes they didn’t. Some of our blogs flourished; others tanked. But we learned and perfected in the process. We still strive for quality, but we try not to let our fear of failure prevent us from trying something new.

I like this attitude. I also like the idea that, “Mojos, or mobile journalists, now rove the community taking pictures, interviewing people and blogging.” And, according to Peterson, The News Tribune conducts “two-way conversation with readers.” That’s an attitude from the blogosphere, and a good one.

As Cannon notes, Howell, “a prominent and trail-blazing newspaperwoman in both Minnesota and Washington, D.C., has died after being struck by a car in New Zealand while on vacation with her husband.”

I offer condolences to her family and journalist colleagues. May she rest in peace.