I’ve mentioned in “About this blog” that this is an experiment, not a “real” news media outlet. The primary goals have been to learn the basics about blogging while getting unstuck from a massive case of writer’s block. After almost 300 posts I feel like I’ve got my writing juices flowing again. Perhaps just as importantly, I’ve had a chance to engage topics and writing styles that my day job simply doesn’t allow.
Truth be told, it’s been years since I’ve had so much fun writing. That’s partly because of interactions with dozens of commentators. Sure, we’ve had some difficult moments, but overall I’d say that you’ve shown how open dialogue can significantly deepen our mutual understanding of a topic.
Nevertheless, all experiments must end. With the beginning of summer I really need to refocus on a series of big writing projects relating to my livelihood. Perhaps in time I can return to local writing, but for at least the next six months I’ll be pretty booked.
So this is the last piece I will post here at Olympia Views. The plan is to mothball the beast after leaving the comments open for a while to capture any final thoughts. My hope is to maintain the site so that stories of historical value can continue to be accessed.
Thank you for your participation
Even by blogospheric standards Olympia Views is fairly small. However, its readership — and visibility in the community — has grown well beyond what I had expected. Thank you to all who have taken the time to read this blog.
Just as it takes effort to write a thoughtful post, so too it takes time to produce a meaningful comment. So I want to thank all of you who have contributed to Olympia Views. I’d particularly like to express my appreciation to Tom Hyde, Rob Richards and Russ Lehman, who together contributed almost half of all comments.
I’d also like to express my gratitude to fellow local bloggers Thad Curtz, Mathias Eichler, Dan Jones, Emmett O’Connell and Rob Richards. You’ve graciously shared links, kudos and helpful criticism from early on. That’s exactly what’s needed to support a stronger network of local bloggers.
Some commentators have stated that you’d like to see this type of conversation continue. If you have the energy to make that happen I’d encourage you to work through an existing alternative media outlet such as OlyBlog. Or help Works In Progress or Green Pages build their web presence.
I’m saddened to leave these conversations. Local blogging is great good fun. But that will need to wait for another time and another platform.
In the meantime, I hope that you all will “vote with your wallet” by financially supporting independent local media. Quality journalism is like any other good or service — in the end, you get what you pay for.
emmettoconnell
June 1, 2012
If it was an experiment, what would you say were the key findings? Was there a difference between your assumption going in and what your results?
Patrick Babineau
June 1, 2012
Sorry that it is ending. I enjoyed your thoughtful a
nd intelligent postings!
Russ Lehman
June 1, 2012
Love to hear answers to Emmett’s questions. This was a great effort with high quality writing (mostly by you) and thoughtful (for the most part) comments by some of the many great minds and voices in Oly. We will miss you and very much hope to have you back when available. Thanks so much for your effort, time and insights.
armedwithvisions
June 1, 2012
Always great when something good doesn’t fizzle out but ends while its still strong! It’s not often that commenting on a blog is worth the effort and perhaps your greatest strength in this experiment is your ability to inspire that / engage the reader in that way?
And hopefully you’ll have one last post on this blog in the future in order to direct us to whatever you’re doing next? I’m sure we’ll all be excited to find a way to participate in that endeavor as well.
tom hyde
June 1, 2012
So sorry to hear this. It would seem things are starting to pick up steam here but I understand. Wish you the best.
Bruce
June 1, 2012
I’ve gotten into this towards the end of the “experiment” but it is really really good. This blog is the best in town in my opinion. I would wonder if the experiment could continue rarely? I also wonder if the experiment could continue under a different writer that you share a common value with and would like to support? You built an audience here and that has a value. The commenters maybe perhaps could gain access to the blog. An archive in this modern world is less useful.I think that the experiment ending is less what is happening rather than it being abandoned. Please consider these alternatives. It is rare that a blog gets as successful as this and I think it is worth considering opening it up to other writers who maybe have less time and writing ability to put towards this kind of effort but could perhaps run it well enough as a group. It would also maintain your outlet should you get the urge. Transitions is where we often fail in this community. How can we successfully transfer a great blog? That is a worthy experiment.
Peggy Clifford
June 2, 2012
I have greatly appreciated your thoughtful writing, and am sorry to see the experiment end.
olympiaviews
June 2, 2012
Thank you for your kind words. Findings? In a sense I’ve been reporting them along the way, e.g., this post on who reads Olympia Views.
I was surprised at how quickly this blog gained visibility without any marketing. This suggests that the local blogosphere possesses a growing capacity for supporting its participants. For example, OlyBlog may have typically been a source of less than 10 referrals per day, but cumulatively they made a huge difference in Olympia View’s readership.
Another factor is that Olympia Views appeared to help fill a major gap in the local independent media, which hasn’t adapted very quickly to the electronic revolution. The legacy media (e.g., Green Pages and Works In Progress) haven’t yet developed an effective web presence while the blogosphere is still building its news-gathering capacity.
I’ve argued that both could accomplish those goals a lot more quickly if they’d join forces, but individualism seems to be the prevailing value of the local indie media scene. Of course, you could also say that about Olympia Views. Consider Bruce’s above-mentioned thoughts. I’m open to his ideas.
For example, one of my biggest take aways is that a blog can’t develop a decent readership base without daily postings. However, that takes quite a bit of time — at least in my case more than is sustainable for someone who has a job, family and other writing projects.
Thus, a blog structure that would make the most sense would be one with four or five core writers who functioned somewhat like columnists for a newspaper — they took responsibility for a certain number of posts per month. The workload would be adjusted as situations changed for individual writers. The key is that the core of the blog would be established writers with a track record of producing quality copy and dealing with commentators in a productive way.
Olympia Views has been the lucky recipient of comments from a handful of people who could provide great contributions to such a “super-blog.” Indeed, some of these folks already have blogs. Why would it be worth the hassle of collaborating with other bloggers rather than doing your own thing? To collectively make a bigger impact.
The trouble with this argument is that we get involved with blogging for different reasons. For example, I didn’t do it to build a media empire but to practice writing quickly. This hints at why getting folks to collaborate isn’t easy.
I’d agree with Tom that Olympia Views has been picking up steam; that’s particularly apparent in gradually increasing readership levels in recent months. However, a daily blog done on a volunteer basis requires more time than I can provide. If nothing else, I hope that Olympia Views has functioned as a “proof of concept” that gets people thinking about future possibilities.
tom.hyde@rocketmail.com
June 2, 2012
“If nothing else, I hope that Olympia Views has functioned as a “proof of concept” that gets people thinking about future possibilities.”
It has. And despite knowing better, I still think about publishing … in print … and ad free. I am sure this blog has inspired others, especially in this day and age when publishing is the push of a button. What will never change, and is the most difficult, is having something worth saying, and the ability to say it well. In this respect, Olympia Views has set the bar locally, and set it high.
I would also note that there are a few publications which started online but with sufficient success have created tandem print editions, either on-demand magazine publishing with HP’s vanity press publishing service MagCloud, like the new print quarterly South by Southeast, to burgeoning ancillary book publishing like Burn Magazine’s successful recent efforts over the last few years (although in the case of Burn it is ALL volunteer with no paid staff and all proceeds go back to photographers in the form of grants).
Obviously both of these examples are broader in scope, regional and international respectively, and photo-centric, but I think the lessons could translate to a smaller geographic market if planned, executed and marketed well, and of course with sufficient local support from those seeking insightful and illuminating work. Olympia might be the place. I had hoped this might be the beginning, here.
For what it’s worth, if something grows out of this, I would be happy to contribute photos, or photo essays, since that is my primary interest now. There are also quite a few experienced and accomplished former journalists locally who, for a relatively modest amount, would likely relish the opportunity to feed their starving souls – or at least, that’s what I recently heard from a retired newspaper publisher turned state worker.
Again, though, the foremost issue in my mind is quality. This is it, right here, but as you readily admit Ms. Lemming, it’s nearly impossible to do your best work as an unpaid weekend warrior.
So, as I so often do when it comes to the questions of publishing quality content in the modern age, I chase my tail. There is still great value even in that. I may one day catch it.
Thanks again. You rocked.
Bruce
June 3, 2012
Your blog isn’t JoeAnybody.wordpress.com it is OlympiaViews. Let’s face it, you knew that you being a professional writer and so involved in the local scene that your blog was never a simple blog. A simple blog is generally put up for friends and family. Then there are targeted blogs, blogs that allow writers to follow specific interests and fill a niche. You went for a news and editorial blog that covers our community, calling it Olympia Views, with the Views being plural. I’ve been agitating for our local independent media to get together and collaborate for a few years now and was extremely happy to see you doing the same. It has never gotten very far although it is a big process and I think it certainly is possible. Here you are agitating for the same thing, so the questions is whether you will put your money where your mouth is. Will you open your blog to a few folks to continue and build the platform? The one thing this experiment proved beyond anything else is that people are looking for local regular, daily, news and analysis and that we aren’t having our needs met. No one is doing what can be a nearly tedious amount of work to get some stable and relevant competition up to counter the Olympian or to take up the extra space. There have been young attempts but what is needed is experience and quality.
olympiaviews
June 3, 2012
Bruce, I said I was open to ideas. What do you have in mind? BTW, your “put your money where your mouth is” rhetoric isn’t helpful at this juncture.
tom hyde
June 4, 2012
Well, here you go. A cover mockup for the new nonprofit, author co-op, (nearly) ad free, 80-page +/- OlympiaViews Quarterly magazine selling as a print-on-demand journal for $20 an issue with a special essay by D. Lemming.
You buying Bruce? I know it’s not The Olympian but …
Hmmm, maybe that’s not the best cover for an inaugural issue. Maybe downtown Lacey instead.
olympiaviews
June 4, 2012
Tom, you’re wicked. This is in somewhat the same vein as Olympia Power & Light’s latest cover, which is really quite funny — and I suspect will be unusually popular.
Your organizational sketch sounds like the direction I’d go. To my mind the ideal would be Green Pages and OlyBlog joining forces to create a multi-platform local Crosscut. Major bloggers would offer regular contributions because of the number and quality of the comments.
Why would the readership be so large? Because of daily postings and meaningful marketing. Who would make this happen? Ultimately a core paid staff initially supported by targeted local fundraising and some start-up grants.
This is all quite doable. But it would take a lot of work to organize. And people would have to give up some autonomy and learn new trade skills. This would require personal reflexiveness.
Such a scenario seems so obvious to me that I would think it would have happened by now if it was going to. So, yes, it may take a new player.
Bruce, what do you bring to the table?
Thad Curtz
June 4, 2012
Anybody who’d like to contribute to improving on-line independent coverage of local news is welcome to post reporting on OlyBlog. Ever since I began reading it (and probably since very shortly after Rick McKinnon started it), the top right sidebar has said: “If you’d like to contribute, please register for an account. Here is a list of local news beats that need to be covered.” (The link for the list takes you to a nice page Emmett O’Connell did with a great photo evoking the glamour of traditional reporting, and some encouraging advice for beginners. To the best of my knowledge, there have only been two or three sort of beat reporters in the blog’s history. (Two of them were photographers.) Emmett covered the Council’s agenda for a number of years, Berd photographed the Peace vigil quite regularly, and for quite a while enpen did an ongoing daily photo of the transformations of the graffiti wall downtown.
I’ve been interested in the unification of the local independent media for some time, and a couple of years ago I actually invited everybody I actually knew doing work of this sort (and people I didn’t know from the rest of the projects) to a dinner party to talk about possibilities. (My best idea at the time was that the print publications could share their logistical burdens, putting out a combined paper in which each of them produced a separate, independent section. I thought they’d save on printing and distribution, and might be able to widen their readership and sell more advertising…) My party didn’t lead to any more collaboration that I know of, except perhaps for Chelsea Baker’s cartooning for Olympia Power & Light when it got started.
A couple of people couldn’t even find the extra time to come to dinner, let alone start a new collaboration. Some wanted to retain the proud independence, history, and cachet of a project that was now their own. I think some people really didn’t want to be associated with other people they thought were more radical, or less sophisticated and ambitious than they were. A couple of these projects have faded away themselves. (Maybe some people thought my particular idea would be more extra trouble than it would be worth, too…)
If anything, the trend in town seems to be toward more individual blogs, like Emmett’s about the library and local history, and Mark Derricott’s about the planning commission, rather than one larger collaborative project.
In any case, one way forward is clear for anybody who’d actually like to move from meta-commentary on the lack of local independent on-line news to creating more of it – feel free to contribute to OlyBlog…
P.S. (If Olympia Views goes on, one way you could encourage more commentary – by me, at least – would be to move it to a location where I didn’t have to hunt up my old passwords and log into WordPress or Facebook any time I felt like chipping in…)
Best wishes,
Thad Curtz
tom hyde
June 4, 2012
Actually, I was thinking a bit bigger – a cooperative nonprofit venture ruthlessly edited where the contributors receive the revenue, minus overhead, on a statewide scale featuring the best of Washington art, life, and political commentary while exploring the big issues of the state that is unequal parts The Sun, New York, Mother Jones, Look, Life, Nat Geo, The Atlantic, The Stranger, and The Economist (did I miss anybody? ::wink::) with few ads, all produced in-house to retain the artistic integrity and continuity of the publication, and published on a quarterly basis. The nonprofit would include a grant wing (or umbrella foundation) to raise funding (ala Mother Jones) to help fund selected projects with up-front seed money. Ancillary revenue generation could include projects like Jen Bekman’s 20×200 print sales of featured artists/photographers, and limited edition book runs like Sy Safransky’s Sunbeams. Extensive networking could ensue with InvestigateWest, Blue Earth Foundation, Crosscut and others to find the best talents, and state J-schools to foster the best new talent, and provide a new outlet for all of them.
Oh yes, and based in the state’s capital.
In short, create an experiment to ask the questions, does quality still matter and will enough people support it, while simultaneously rejecting the slide into the abyss created by the drive for profit and numbers games inherent in traditionally and primarily ad-based media models.
Yikes. If you’re going to dream … it’s been fun.
Russ Lehman
June 4, 2012
I’m not sure if this belongs here or on the “new” thread above. I put it here because Thad’s comment above. I used to write occasionally, and often read Olyblog. I think very highly of Thad and find his writing and input generally to be well thought and, importantly, nourishing to discussion and community. The problem I have found is that Olyblog is not like that generally and, I find it fundamentally different that what was here- in Olympiaviews.
Sure there is the issue of the format and the form – Olympiaviews I always found, from the start, to be, well…a better crafted space which is visually more appealing, and therefore more desirable to use.
Notwithstanding the issue of anonymity (yes, I know you, Olymiaviews. has written about your feelings on that, but it still remains highly troubling to me…and I believe many others) and the “tagging” that does occur at Olyblog, albeit infrequently. Simply I found the quality of writing and thought to be much higher here.
I know this raises all kinds of important issues: 1) whether, and if so how to moderate?,2) what, if any standard should be both practiced and applied?, 3) should anonymity be tolerated?….and is it reasonable to accept it because some rely on it for the “right” (i.e. gender harassment, privacy, etc.) reasons?, 4) how broad should it be, commentary, calender, essentially wide open to anything and everything?
There are almost infinite questions here, I know. I have few answers but I do know, while I am somewhat uncomfortable with the sense I must admit that I migrated to Olympiaviews simply because it was more visually appealing, better written, more thoughtful, (generally) not fraught with Olympian-style comment vomit, and more narrowly focused.
olympiaviews
June 5, 2012
Russ, without a nome de plume there never would have been an Olympia Views. You are lucky if you have the ability to avoid such gambits in your life.
Thad, thank you for the background on OlyBlog and your organizing efforts. The trend does seem to be toward individualism. That’s okay as long as people realize the trade off — that progressive-greens won’t have much media reach. Is it okay to keep losing policy battles in order to protect one’s turf? For example, if the public power initiative fails, one reason why will be the weakness of the local independent press.
All that said, organizing any kind of a media outlet takes work. If Bruce and his network would like to take on Olympia Views I’m open to that if he can show he would be a good steward. Otherwise, it may make more sense to talk further with Thad about how OlyBlog might work better for them.
Tom’s grand vision is appealing. The trick is to take it step by step. Each successful step makes it possible to take the next one. What’s the first step in this case?
tom hyde
June 5, 2012
First step? An incredible amount of research. Actually, that would be the second step. First step is to outline the steps.
Did have a good conversation with the associate publisher of a national magazine today, though. To her knowledge, no one has taken the nonprofit author co-op model into magazine publishing. New model. I’m not sure if my idea could be called a coop, a hybrid perhaps (btw this is the UN International Year of the Coop). Still exploring models. At this point, this is nothing more than a fun intellectual exercise. It’s evolving. See what you started?
Bruce
July 5, 2012
I haven’t followed up on this thread until now, which is unfortunate. Four years ago I would have had lots of energy and ability to jump on board for this, four months ago would have been better. However things are happening now so I will jump in with what energy I’ve got.
Local media in town right now is delivered through facebook. The biggest page is the Occupy Olympia page, it has 4,700+ people while The Olympian only has 1,900. It reaches with, each post, between 600-1800 people’s news feeds, with it’s audience of majority Olympia and Thurston residents. Too bad most of the posts are total fluff because no one is writing any real content. That is what this website had; real content, by a real writer, on real issues.
Olympia Views and Oly blog would need to be updated to have a format that is supportive of a robust new local and collaborative media although it is leaps and bounds better than WIP which as near as I can tell is a walking dead publication. No amount of pleading will get them to pull their collective head out of the sand either. A year ago I tried to encourage them into collaborating with more local media or at least publishing their meeting times and astonishingly they went the exact opposite towards total secrecy, no collaboration and have completely detached themselves from the community.
I like Thad about two years ago contacted a bunch of folks in local media to meet up and talk about collaboration. A few of us met for a while but none of the people who were key figures in publications or media participated. What needs to happen is meetings, weekly ones by a core group of folks who have time and most of all a willingness to collaborate. It would be nice if the already established media were a part of it but it but don’t count on their willingness or interest.
I would be willing to be a part of that, and will agitate for it, but I won’t be the organizer for it. I was to turned off by some people’s insistence that collaboration, organization and cooperation was equal to domination. I would rather work with the willing than try and make inroads with the folks who show up at the table suspicious from the start.
olympiaviews
July 7, 2012
Bruce, your comments about the insularity of local leftist media reinforce my tendency to do my own thing rather than try to organize existing outlets. Folks seem pretty satisfied with the status quo even though, at least in my view, it’s not working very well.
I personally don’t see the Occupy movement as a terribly useful means of organizing. There’s not enough there there. At any rate, my goal is to reach past ideological camps to cultivate a broader community dialogue. The left will generally not win the big political battles if it merely talks to itself.
Last month you were pretty pointed about saving Olympia Views so I was surprised at how you disappeared.
I am always open to ideas but won’t be the organizer of another media initiative any time soon unless it revolves around my livelihood, current or future. Thus, my thinking hovers more in the realm of “professional” operations rather than volunteer-based journalism.
Bruce
July 11, 2012
We don’t need leftist media. We need media that is controlled by real humans instead of corporate persons. There are ways to do it, and it is going to happen, with a living wage.
As far as the Occupy movement is concerned: you might not see it’s usefulness at present for organizing but it is a very large movement and the organizing that has come out of it will have long-term reverberations.
I attended the Occupy National Gathering in Philadelphia last week. It was a disappointingly small turnout but Chris Hedges, Media Benjamin and Matt Taibbi were all there and spoke. The network that has been established nationally is large, while some of the characters might not be ideal, folks are learning how to work with each other.
A project I am developing right now involving grassroots media that builds partly on the occupy network would probably be worth your time. It involves a chance to get articles out to tens of thousands or more and has potential for paid writing. If you are curious I could send you an e-mail about it. I’m looking for partners. E-mail me: bwildleaf@gmail.com