New alt publication in Vancouver
Another alternative publication is publishing in Vancouver, acccording to The Oregonian.
James Walling and his brother Stephen both wrote for the now defunct Vanguard, which published valiantly for around two years. My column in Vanguard ran for about a year.
When I met Erick Anderson, who published Vanguard, I knew nothing about the world of alternative weeklies. My casual, layperson observations were that quality content costs money and distribution is a key challenge. Large grocery chains don't seem to cotton to start-up alternative publications, and while some readers will go out of their way to find it, most won't.
I also don't know much about either Wallings' politics, as I never had any long conversations with either of them. Hopefully over time Voice will develop its own, um, voice as a counter-weight to the endless inanities put forth on the editorial pages of The Columbian.
One challenge that faced Vanguard was a lack of reporters. I used to kid Anderson that he made Vanguard look so good people thought he had a big staff, which was hardly the case. It was a tiny operation.
I pitched in where I could, writing far more articles than I intended and, on one occasion, actually breaking a big political story on the Vanguard blog. (We were the first in the state to report on the Speaker's Roundtable fake sex offender postcards.)
I bring all this up to point out something working journalists already know: reporting, at least quality reporting, is a lot of hard work. Anyone who is going to do a lot of it is going to want to be paid, if not well, at least something approaching a living wage for their efforts. That's a key challenge for any new publication.
Many on the progressive side have spent several years now discussing how we need to nurture institutions. It's something our side has neglected for decades, so it's not going to be solved over night. While blogs are important, not everyone is going to read them and efforts like Vanguard and now Voice could play important roles. Vancouver is a nearly perfect place to test such ideas, given the lack of media competition. Many people are starved for real information about their community.
In a general sense, developing sources of seed money and other assistance for efforts to communicate progressive views would be a valuable effort. Now, I don't know if the Voice will turn out to be very political at all. That's for the Wallings to decide. But the broader progressive movement needs to turn some attention to cultivating media alternatives.
The Vancouver Voice issues its third edition this week, confident the area is ready for an alternative news voice.The Vancouver Voice has a limited web site up, but it includes a list of where one can obtain a copy of the publication.
"Any major metropolitan area is an alternative-weekly kind of place," said James Walling, editor in chief. "It's just waiting to be cultivated."
James Walling and his brother Stephen both wrote for the now defunct Vanguard, which published valiantly for around two years. My column in Vanguard ran for about a year.
When I met Erick Anderson, who published Vanguard, I knew nothing about the world of alternative weeklies. My casual, layperson observations were that quality content costs money and distribution is a key challenge. Large grocery chains don't seem to cotton to start-up alternative publications, and while some readers will go out of their way to find it, most won't.
I also don't know much about either Wallings' politics, as I never had any long conversations with either of them. Hopefully over time Voice will develop its own, um, voice as a counter-weight to the endless inanities put forth on the editorial pages of The Columbian.
One challenge that faced Vanguard was a lack of reporters. I used to kid Anderson that he made Vanguard look so good people thought he had a big staff, which was hardly the case. It was a tiny operation.
I pitched in where I could, writing far more articles than I intended and, on one occasion, actually breaking a big political story on the Vanguard blog. (We were the first in the state to report on the Speaker's Roundtable fake sex offender postcards.)
I bring all this up to point out something working journalists already know: reporting, at least quality reporting, is a lot of hard work. Anyone who is going to do a lot of it is going to want to be paid, if not well, at least something approaching a living wage for their efforts. That's a key challenge for any new publication.
Many on the progressive side have spent several years now discussing how we need to nurture institutions. It's something our side has neglected for decades, so it's not going to be solved over night. While blogs are important, not everyone is going to read them and efforts like Vanguard and now Voice could play important roles. Vancouver is a nearly perfect place to test such ideas, given the lack of media competition. Many people are starved for real information about their community.
In a general sense, developing sources of seed money and other assistance for efforts to communicate progressive views would be a valuable effort. Now, I don't know if the Voice will turn out to be very political at all. That's for the Wallings to decide. But the broader progressive movement needs to turn some attention to cultivating media alternatives.
