Blog On

Most folks aren't aware that the AZ Republic has a blog, staffed by their reporters. I read some of them occasionally, but frankly haven't found any of them so compelling as to bookmark it and go back there daily. But when this article showed up over the weekend, I found my curiosity piqued:

Gilbert residents have a new way to sound off on local issues or just engage in some friendly banter about community issues online, thanks to the addition of a cadre of bloggers on The Republic's Web site, azcentral.com.

Gilbert Mayor Steve Berman and his predecessor, former mayor Cynthia Dunham, are among 20 Southeast Valley bloggers who can be found at seblogs.azcentral.com. Other notable Gilbert residents who have become Republic bloggers are Ric Borom, a former Gilbert policeman and now principal of a Mesa charter school; Elizabeth Cress-Sweet, Gilbert Arts Advisory Board chairperson and a community activist; and Mary Ellen Fresquez, the owner of Ink It in downtown Gilbert and a longtime community activist.

The group also includes Bob Schuster, The Republic's Southeast Valley Editorial Page Editor, and most of the other editorial writers for the paper's community newspapers in the region.
Howard Dendurent, a Gilbert community columnist for The Gilbert Republic's Opinions pages, also is blogging.

As whole, the group offers an eclectic mix of community leaders, activists and personalities who will be talking about issues in individual Southeast Valley communities as well as regional concerns.

"In recent years, blogs have become a vibrant and significant part of the Internet and for newspapers, they offer a new opportunity to build stronger connections with the communities we serve," said Paul Maryniak, The Republic's Southeast Valley general manager.

Maryniak credited Schuster and azcentral.com Editor John Leach for coming up with the idea of a Southeast Valley blogging contingent.

"It's an important addition to our community forums that appear on the Opinion pages," Schuster said.

"It's immediate, lively, frank, informative and entertaining. Sometimes a bit bare-knuckle, the kind of stuff that doesn't always appear in the paper.

"Our bloggers come from a wide variety of backgrounds, interests and political positions. But they have one thing in common: They're all plugged in to our communities. I'm really looking forward to this, and heartily urge our readers to visit the site and to participate in the discussions."

I've copied the entire article, as well as linking to the article in the paper above. You might find that inadequate, because you would want a link to the actual blog written by these folks. So would I. I found it a bit ironic, and not a little shortsighted, that even in the online version of the article, they provided no links. The address of the online newspaper itself is not much help. I did a search of the newspaper site using the word "blog" and came up with some articles that referenced blogging. Only when I opened one of the referenced articles did I see that it was written on the political blog by one of the editorial writers for the Republic; and there I found a listing of sites for their blogs, including this one for the southeast valley, so I'll help out the paper by passing it on. The decision about bookmarking it is yours, but at least you know where it is.