Tucson Citizen.com
Caveat Lector - Politics, Government and the Free Press – by Mark B. Evans

Archive for the ‘TucsonCitizen.com’ Category

State’s oldest news provider becomes its newest citizen journalism Web site

Monday, July 6th, 2009

Text of the press release I sent out yesterday to area media about the new design:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

TUCSON – Monday morning, July 6th, the new TucsonCitizen.com will launch its redesigned Web site as a home for Tucson’s citizen journalists. A compendium of blogs, it will serve as The Voice of Tucson, written by Tucsonans for Tucsonans. They will provide news, information, opinion, commentary and perspective on the issues, interests and events that affect daily life in the Old Pueblo. (more…)

TucsonCitizen.com site update

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

The new version of the TucsonCitizen.com will be up Monday morning.

The redesigned site will have improved home page content and navigation and much improved individual blog pages.

Each blogger will be able to customize their blog and add features and functions available to WordPress blogs.

This version of the site is the ground floor of what we hope to be a very tall building of citizen journalist bloggers adding information and perspective about life in Tucson.

Be sure to check back Monday for the new and improved TucsonCitizen.com.

For more information about TucsonCitizen.com and our mission, go here and here.

Site update

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

I can’t believe it’s only Wednesday. After a fitfull start Monday, the basic site is up and several new bloggers are blogging.

Technical issues continue to be debugged and the site should get better every day. The problem with commenting logins will continue for a few more days, though.

Some of the WordPress plugins are buggy and we’re working those out too. The blogs should start to get more sophisticated and unique as the users get used to WP (including the administrators who are learning WP at a furious pace).

Among the new bloggers signed up are:

From the Right – by John Ellinwood, a conservative and frequent blogger who is the former president of the Oro Valley Republican Club. He’ll be writing about local, state and national politics.

Data Port – by Art Jacobson, a retired writer and journalist who will write mostly about politics and the media. But he’s been blogging Data Port for a couple of years and judging by his archive, he’s likely to write about anything.

Veteran Veritas – by Mike Brewer, a former Marine and Vietnam veteran who has been involved in veterans’ issues for 30 years. He’s also a downtown gadfly and I’m trying to get him to write about that, too, but his real expertise is veterans’ affairs.

Tucson Sci-Fi – by Pablo Bey. He’s a little hard to describe. Click on his blog and read his bio info. He’ll mostly write about science fiction and horror media, but he’s an eclectic guy and it’s likely his blog will be too.

The Logical Lizard – by Geoff Notkin,  “a science writer and columnist, a television documentary host, meteorite hunter, photographer, musician and artist.” He will be writing about all those topics.

Fashion Edge – by staff of the Razor’s Edge, a clothing store for people with… um … an edgy taste in clothing. Check out the blog. It’s either your scene or it isn’t. If it is, it should be a fun blog.

Artistic Tucson – will be written by a numerous Tucson artists about the Tucson art scene and art in general.

Metromix – Polly Higgins is a Citizen staffer still awaiting news of her fate who has been the head of Metromix for the past year. She will blog about events and entertainment options in Tucson that can be found in Metromix.

Zoom Zoom Tuson – Keith Ames will blog about Tucson’s racing scene.

There are numerous other blogs in the works about numerous issues that should start up during the rest of this week and next.

I know some readers have been frustrated with the change but the site should get better every day. Roll out of the full redesigned site is still on schedule for the end of the month, if not sooner.