What is TucsonCitizen.com?
TucsonCitizen.com is a compendium of citizen journalism and general interest blogs that serves as The Voice of Tucson, written by Tucsonans for Tucsonans. The bloggers and citizen journalists here provide news, information, opinion, commentary and perspective on the issues, interests and events that affect daily life in the Old Pueblo. Our goal is to provide a Web site that gives voice to people who want to inform their community about issues that might not attract the attention of the daily newspaper or TV news and to provide their fellow citizens points of view about the issues and events of the day that differ from that of the dominant editorial voice in the city – the Arizona Daily Star.
(Almost) Anyone Can Have a Blog
TucsonCitizen.com is a hyper-local site, meaning the content here is written by Tucsonans for Tucsonans (term encompasses the metropolitan area, including county residents and residents of Oro Valley, Marana, Sahuarita, the Tohono O’odham Nation and the metro areas of influence, including Tubac/Rio Rico, Nogales, Benson, SaddleBrooke, Oracle/San Manuel areas). Blog authors must live in Pima or Santa Cruz counties or if they live outside of the metro area, must primarily write about Tucson/Pima county issues and topics of interest and/or Southern Arizona and Arizona issues or topics of interest (the key word here is “primarily”).
If you have a blog and are interested in what we can do for you, or you want to start a blog at TucsonCitizen.com, e-mail site Editor Mark B. Evans at mevans@tucsoncitizen.com, or call 573-4614.
Why blog here – what’s in it for you?
• Readers. Thousands of people a day come to TucsonCitizen.com. Instead of a few hundred or a few thousand page views a week, you will have the potential to generate tens or even hundreds of thousands. The reach and impact of what you write and post will exponentially increase. And isn’t that the point? If you blog because you want to inform, you will inform more people under the TucsonCitizen.com umbrella than out in the cybersphere by yourself. If you have something to say, we can deliver you an audience.
• Independence. You own what you write. Citizen journalists and bloggers at TucsonCitizen.com are independent writers and TucsonCitizen.com, Gannett and the Arizona Daily Star have no control over what they write or how often they write. Writers here need only follow a few common sense rules governing decorum and similar matters.
• Site support. All bloggers have to learn to be a bit of a web monkey to make their blogs look good. Most, however, quickly reach their Peter Principle after learning how to upload photos and video. The web is a much more powerful broadcast medium than that. We will teach you how to blog and if you already know the basics, we can help you learn advanced blogging including podcasting, vodcasting, live streaming, creating multimedia photo slideshows or interactive graphics and how to use social media to connect with readers and much more. Your success is our success.
• Compensation potential. It is the intent of TucsonCitizen.com to return a percentage of the site’s advertising profits to its bloggers. Moreover, bloggers here will be able to sell advertising on their own blogs and keep the vast majority of the profit.
What’s in it for Gannett Co. Inc.?
• Readers. TucsonCitizen.com is a place where Tucson’s citizens can go to get information, perspective, opinion and advice that they can’t find anywhere else. We are excited about how TucsonCitizen.com gives Tucson’s citizens a voice in their government and their lifestyles.
TucsonCitizen.com site facts:
- TucsonCitizen.com is the largest local blogging site in Tucson with more than 70 local bloggers and more than 6 million unique visitors a year who view more than 12 million pages. We’re adding new blogs and bloggers every week.
- TC.com has excellent search engine optimization. The key to being read or seen on the internet is having your content land on the first page of search results. Our blogs are routinely in the top five of search results and often No. 1.
- Technical support. While there are many blog sites, few to none have paid staff whose sole responsibility is to make it easy for you to blog. We provide group and one-on-one training to help your blog be the best it can be.
- Access to the thousands of photos taken by Tucson Citizen news photographers over the past 20 years and the from the Arizona Republic and more than 80 Gannett newspapers around the country. We also have a subscription to stock photos, giving you access to tens of thousands of images to illustrate your blog without worrying about copyright infringement.
- Access to Gannett’s nationwide content. TC.com is part of Gannett, owner of the Arizona Republic, USA Today, 85 metropolitan and suburban newspapers and 12 TV stations in some of the largest markets in the country.