On the Web, you really never know who's watching – unless, that is, you are using Google Analytics or some other data-catching service. Even then, you really never know who exactly is peeking in on what you're doing.
This little country newspaper blog was caught red handed recently. We were just delivering the news like always when the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues came calling. Tim Wiseman and former Louisville Courier-Journal writer Al Cross are bloggers for the institute aimed at helping non-metropolitan journalists define the public agenda for their communities, and to help them grasp the local impact of broader issues, according to its own Web site.
Wiseman called The Crittenden Press office in Marion earlier this week inquiring about our editor's blog. We discussed for a good while the reasons The Crittenden Press – despite our somewhat isolated existence in rural America – tries to stay on the cutting edge of technology.
Wiseman and Cross found our blog and made us an example for other rural community newspapers to follow. They posted a story on the Rural Journalism Blog.
Think what you want, but it's a feather in our cap. It proves that our plan is working. Our strategy is defined by a belief that despite rural isolation, we can still have at our fingertips a virtual world audience.
Thanks to the Internet, The Crittenden Press Online and our editor's blog, have a stage much larger and broader than most of us realize. Now, if we can only find a way to make it as profitable as the hand-held version of The Crittenden Press, we'll be – to use a rural term – walkin' in tall cotton.
