Local in Ann Arbor: 2011

I’m not much for looking backward and don’t care much for milestones.  But there is some point, I’ll admit, to reflection on what has happened in the last year, if only to prepare for the next day and what follows. Now how best to  make sense of our recent history?  What made the year memorable from this blog’s perspective?  We’d surely not use the measurement that AnnArbor.com’s approach was to use page view numbers.  This produced a list of mostly sports-related stories, with a sprinkling of crime and tragedy.  Looking back at the year on Local in Ann Arbor, I had some posts I was really proud of but got relatively little notice, while others that got a lot of attention were not all that substantial.  Still, looking at the page view hits was instructive, and I’ve used them as a guide in this year-end review.

Honorable mentions go to posts from previous years.

Scott Trudeau (L) and Murph (R), enjoying victory ca. 2004; photo copyright by Griffin Reames, used with permission

Most irrelevantly accessed post: Ann Arbor Blogs: the Moving Finger Moves On, published in February 2010, is one of our top hits of all time.  This is not because of the brilliant writing or the subject matter (a requiem for Arbor Update), but because of the “porch couch” picture.  I get a search item for “porch couch” at least once a week, which pulls up this post with its picture.  Another example of how your history on the Internet never goes away – the student to the right, known here as Murph, is now a professional planner (Richard Murphy), whose image from 8 years ago is no longer very descriptive.  (The porch couches are now also history.)

Post which made the biggest splash and was most significant: The all-time top hit has been The Secret Plan for the Conference Center, published August 2009, which was the Ann Arbor area’s first report of a hotel-conference center proposal that had been quietly cooking along on back-office desks for over a year.

This post was the first of  a very long chain that recorded aspects of the fight over the Library Lot and what became known as the Valiant proposal.  The series, all of which has been listed on the Library Lot Conference Center page, was a major feature of this blog through 2010 and into 2011.  One of the top posts for this last year was Ann Arbor Conference Center: An Authoritative Study, where a study by a nationally-known expert on hotels and conference centers was made accessible.  The study did a pretty conclusive job of showing that the center would not be a good business risk.   The lengthy What’s in the Box (Compiled) summarized many posts analyzing the Valiant proposal as presented by the Roxbury report, which recommended this proposal for adoption.  But my favorite post is the inappropriately named And Why Are We Worried About It (Valiant LOI) which was drafted and named before a sudden rush of action on the City Council finally, as we were fond of saying, killed the zombie on April 4, 2011.  This post outlines some of the citizens’ campaign to defeat the proposal (the picture was on buttons that we passed out to oppose adoption of the Letter of Intent).

Photo by John Weise

Two of our posts on the Percent for Art program, Taxes for Art and Taxes for Art (III) were in the top 10 visited in 2011. These were an effort to support proposed changes in the Percent for Art program (that ultimately failed to gain Council approval).  The first one in the series laid out arguments, with references, as to why this program is illegal.

Another “top hit” was our piece called “Heritage City Place Row“, written just before the tragic conclusion to the years-long City Place/Heritage Row debate.  The seven historic houses are now only history and instead there will be a cell-block-like student apartment complex installed in the middle of one of our near-downtown neighborhoods.  This was one of the greatest failures of governance of the year.  There are many directions to point fingers, but I’ll just say that it is very sad for our town.

Of course, the two “townie” posts were very successful. What Does It Mean to be an Ann Arbor Townie?  was the top in page hits, with the political discussion The Council Party vs the Ann Arbor Townies close behind.  That’s what happens when I stray from the wonkiness.  Actually, when I began this blog, I had intended to have more pieces that were simply reflective, but events in Ann Arbor (and the politics!) have often driven the topics.  The Council Party piece, like most of my political posts, was written in defense of our embattled group of civic activists (whose numbers expanded greatly during the conference center episode) after an attack from one of The Powers That Be.

Central Area (click for larger)

One of my favorite posts did make the top 10:  Ann Arbor’s Suburban Brain Problem was a slow starter but has been getting continuous looks so that it was actually #5 for the year.  This was probably our snarkiest post and the sarcasm and sardonic humor may have confused a number of readers.  But it contains some serious information about the lack of open space or green space not just in the downtown, but the entire Central Area.  (Ironically, the largest green area in the map is Fuller Park, now threatened with a parking structure.) It was written in reaction to a DDA partnership meeting in which the object was to explain why no new parks are needed in the downtown because we have the Palio parking lot (sorry, snarkiness just sneaks in there).

Click for larger (WALLY route)

Finally,  three transportation – themed posts were near the top.  The post WALLY Hitting the Wall came in just under Parking and the Limits of Downtown and the Fuller Road Station: It’s All About Parking tagged along a little farther down.  The WALLY post and the Fuller Road Station post were two of those I consider to be references, with many diagrams and documents attached.  They are part of the major theme that will be going forward in the next year, namely the substantial transportation initiatives currently underway.   The whole long story will be indexed on the Transportation Page.

Of course, these were by no means the only important issues for Ann Arbor.  This is a blog, not a newspaper.

Speaking of which, if you have soldiered through to read all this, you care about events in our city and want the full story.  So now is a good time to write a check to support the Ann Arbor Chronicle.  Or if you prefer, donate online.  (They make it easy.)  Where would we be without the Chronicle’s, er, chronicling all the actions that are affecting our lives?

So now on to 2012.  I can only echo Tiny Tim and say “God bless us, every one!”  We may need it.

UPDATE: According to WordPress (they send a yearly summary), “porch couch” was one of 5 top searches leading to this blog.  The other 4 were variations on my personal name or the blog title.  There must be some commercial opportunities in there somewhere.

Local Blogs and Media in Ann Arbor

Our blogroll had, I admit, gotten stale and old.  It was last assembled a couple of years ago when we were contemplating local media in the paperless age.   Then we last meditated on local blogs with the famous “porch couch” post (still an occasional hit), published in February 2010.

Meanwhile, a number of new blogs have come along, and online publications have changed from time to time.  So the Blogroll now contains a number of new blogs.  In addition, I’ve revisited some of the other online publications to make sure they follow my criteria.

1. They should be mostly about Ann Arbor.  (After all, we are “Local in Ann Arbor”.)

2. They should be reasonably current.  I have my own “blog lacunae” times but there should be updates at some interval.

3. They should shed a little light on the life of the city.

4. They should meet my completely arbitrary taste (preferably little or no nastiness, and should make me think a little).

Most of the online media that were previously listed (Ann Arbor Chronicle, AnnArbor.com, Arborweb, Concentrate, Current, and the Michigan Daily) fill needs for news and information, and the Ann Arbor District Library home page still lists many current events in Ann Arbor.  I’ve eliminated a few others.

In alphabetical order, the new additions are:

Damn Arbor, a group production by graduate students that has sometimes been touted as the inheritor of Arbor Update, but is actually very different.  It is irreverent, light, sometimes very thoughtful, and fun.

Edward Vielmetti’s blog, which goes through name and format changes periodically but is one of the oldest surviving blogs in Ann Arbor.  It is eclectic and usually thought-provoking.

Motown to Treetown “A blog about Detroit, Ann Arbor, and the forty miles in between”.  A satisfying dense blog often about civic issues and reminding us that we are part of a greater metropolitan area.

The News of Ann Arbor, a spoof that attempts to avoid confusion by writing “This is Satire” all over its heading.  New and funny, also penetrating.

Honorable mention to Mark Maynard‘s venerable blog, which is however usually about Ypsilanti or general subjects.

Not a blog but not to be missed: the Ann Arbor Newshawks.  I gather that one can follow them on YouTube.    Here is the Summer 2011 report. Wicked satire, often aimed at our civic deficiencies.

UPDATE:  Another local blog, ECONJEFF,  most often features musings about economics and national issues, but also picks up Ann Arbor issues and recently had a run of Ann Arbor topics.  The economics is often interesting, too.

Not a blog but frequently updated and containing a wealth of information,  the Neighborhood Alliance website is worth checking out.  The Neighborhood Alliance is a very loose association of Ann Arbor folks: “Our fundamental goal is to have the City treat neighborhoods as stakeholders in decision making.”  

SECOND UPDATE:  I’ve added ECONJEFF to the blog roll and also Ann Arbor Schools Musings.  The latter is a very up-to-date and thoughtful discussion about Ann Arbor schools, with forays into general educational subjects.

THIRD UPDATE: I’ve surrendered and added Mark Maynard to the blogroll.  Just too much good stuff about our region, our state, and our sister city, mixed in with a lot of other amusing musings.

FOURTH UPDATE: Mary Morgan’s thoughts on the local media scene are worthwhile contemplating.

Ann Arbor Blogs: the Moving Finger Moves On

Blogs considerably post-date Omar Khayyam, but I was reminded of these lines of his recently:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Of course he was writing about Life And All That, of which blogs are only a rather pale reflection, but their transitory nature was brought home by the recent announcement that Arbor Update is folding.  As noted by Edward Vielmetti on AnnArbor.com, it was begun in 2004 by a group of University of Michigan (mostly) students.  (Julie Weatherbee, who has been a stalwart, is on UM staff.)  Not noted by Vielmetti is that in the early days it had a pronounced anti-townie tone.  When I happened on it perhaps a year later, I was intrigued by its New Urbanist tilt.  Many of the contributors, including Dale Winling (who founded an anti-neighborhood association called the New West Side) and Richard Murphy (aka “Murph”) were students in urban planning.  At the time Douglas Kelbaugh of that school and department was promulgating many of the same concepts and was influential in setting city policy and the Calthorpe exercise (see my review) and I found this blog (the first one I ever read, along with its fellow student-run, anti-townie blog, Ann Arbor is Overrated or AAIO) to be a challenging, if sometimes infuriating, window on a different perspective.  (I remember in particular Murph’s holding forth on the notion that homeowners should not be allowed to have curbcuts for driveways into public streets, since that took away parking for others.)

Over time, AU evolved into a useful venue for news and the pulse of what was happening in areas not reported by the Ann Arbor News.  There were some really nasty anonymous commenters and some annoying threads that ultimately required moderation (to anguished cries of Censorship!), but also some really good conversation about the topics of the day.  Julie Weatherbee also performed a considerable service in posting a summary of items that were coming up on the council agenda, with appropriate links.  But now it’ll come off my list of local media.  I’ll miss it.

AU was also a point of entry to discover other blogs.  As we’ve noted before, this expanding universe (blogosphere? whatever) of local blogs is a great way to learn about topics of special local interest.  But now we are seeing its impermanence also.  Indeed, most of the blogs listed on AU’s masthead are either gone or inactive.  Along with AAIO, this includes Larry Kestenbaum’s “Polygon, the Dancing Bear“, once a good place for political commentary but apparently an awkward fit with being the county clerk; Murph’s own Common Monkeyflower (perhaps not a good fit with being a working urban planner) and Teeter Talk (still some intermittent articles, but Homeless Dave has found a home on the Ann Arbor Chronicle).  Edward Vielmetti still maintains his venerable blog, which I still think of as Vacuum though it is not named that, but I suspect that his new role as blogmeister at AnnArbor.com has been a considerable distraction.

To some extent, the newsiness and immediacy of local blogs, not to mention the sometimes snarky commentary, have been usurped by “legitimate” online news media, like Ann Arbor Chronicle and AnnArbor.com.  AnnArbor.com even solicits volunteer contributors who are essentially bloggers.  But there are still some local blogs of interest. One that everyone is talking about today (well, everyone who is interested in local politics) is A2Politico.  The latest post announces that its previously anonymous author, Patricia Lesko, is running for mayor.  I’m curious to see whether she will be able to keep up the prodigious output of the last several months.  Another political blog is Some Other Viewpoint, unusual for this area in that it discusses Washtenaw County issues from a relatively conservative (and overtly Republican) viewpoint.   A group I’m involved with has a blog, Public Land – Public Process.   There are also two Ypsilanti blogs that are worth following.  Advance Ypsilanti is all about that city’s policies and politics.  Mark Maynard writes about many topics, often but not always local (including a recent story about the next step in Murph’s career), and usually provocative and/or entertaining.

Who knows how many of those blogs (or this one) will be around in another year?  The problem with blogging was explained to the Pope on a recent radio show: “You have to keep posting”.   AU had a longer run than most, perhaps because of its group nature. So farewell, Arbor Update.  It’s been good ta know ya.

Scott Trudeau (L) and Murph (R), enjoying victory ca. 2004; photo copyright by Griffin Reames, used with permission

UPDATE: After receiving the comment from Edward Vielmetti about the New West Side organization, I went hunting for the article I wrote about the Arbor Update bloggers back in 2005.  (I had to scan the paper copy: the Ann Arbor Observer doesn’t make digital copies generally available.)  Sure enough, it quotes Dale Winling on his efforts to establish alternative renter-based neighborhood groups and the core of AU bloggers as being against having “homeowner values” pushed on them. The Observer chose a picture from 2004, showing two of them enjoying their victory over the proposed ordinance that would have kept couches off porches, a source of visual blight to homeowners but a basic freedom to student renters.

SECOND UPDATE: It was with high hopes that I clicked on a new blog highlighted by Ryan Stanton on Twitter.  But the anonymous blogger (self-identified as female) of “arborblahg” seems more engaged by animus against everyone not her own generation than any political sensibility.  Not very subtle or even very funny: “geritol spiked with vodka and viagra”.  An email we received at our blog email address from “Mallory Weis” inviting us to look at the new blog says her motivation is “because I need something more meaningful than ‘House’ and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ in my life”.  I deduce that she is fascinated by medicine from these hints and because “Mallory-Weiss syndrome” is described by Wikipedia as a condition of bleeding from tears at the junction of the stomach and esophagus caused by retching and vomiting “often associated with alcoholism and eating disorders”.  Pretty.  She needs a proofreader too.  No need to look for serious examination of the issues there.  Arbor Update, I miss you even more.

UPDATE:  The use of upholstered couches on porches was outlawed by the Ann Arbor City Council on September 20, 2010.  The story on AnnArbor.com continues to receive angry comments from students.

Ann Arbor’s Media Online at PBS

A story on AnnArbor.com today features, among other bits, an online-only clip from PBS Newshour about Ann Arbor’s media.  Amusingly, the only reader interviewed is a UM sophomore, who says she doesn’t miss the Ann Arbor News much.  But Ed Vielmetti is also interviewed, as are Mary Morgan and Dave Askins of the Ann Arbor Chronicle.  (Dave is shown working at the Workantile Exchange.)  Not mentioned is Ann Arbor’s vibrant blogging culture.

Ann Arbor’s Fifth Estate: The Citizen Journalists

Wherein a new television series is announced; scroll to the bottom for the schedule.

As I’ve written before, if you want to know the news about what is going on in Ann Arbor, you can no longer just pick up the newspaper.  You have to work harder, and mostly to go online.  We’ve listed a number of the available news sources.  But how can we really get to the core of issues and events affecting our city?  One option is to accept the help of some citizen journalists.

At a recent training workshop given by the Online News Association, we were told that “Ann Arbor is ground zero” for a new era in journalism.   Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute gave us a lecture describing what she and others are calling the “fifth estate”* .   McBride emphasized the rising importance of citizen journalism, including bloggers and other (non-professional) news and opinion gatherers.  This interest in citizen journalism is apparently getting stronger as traditional new vehicles like printed newspapers are falling by the wayside.  Another Poynter associate listed all the types of people who might be part of this “fifth estate” and characterized them this way: “a frame that sees that the freedoms and responsibilities of the First Amendment empower not just a professional caste of news gatherers and distributors, but potentially every citizen.”  As I have mentioned before, there has been increasing attention to this phenomenon.

Our workshop was indeed attended by a number of “citizen journalists”, grading into “real journalists”.  Several staff from AnnArbor.com were there, and Clarence Cromwell, a journalist who has a blog,  freethenews.net, about this very subject.  (He also has a print news publication forthcoming but no announcement yet.) Matt Hampel, one of the major contributors to ArborWiki, a maintainer and moderator of Arbor Update (a hotbed of fifth estaters if ever there was one), and the instigator of the Ann Arbor Area Government Document Repository,  attended the evening workshop. I was there (a citizen journalist-blogger) and so were quite a few of the “citizen bloggers” recruited by AnnArbor.com.  These included Linda Diane Feldt, Alice Ralph, Cathy Theisen, and a columnist,  Frances Kai-Hwa Wang.  I’m sure I missed several more who didn’t happen to sit at my table.  I am impressed by the effort that AnnArbor.com has made to recruit individuals from the community, with the leadership of Edward Vielmetti.  It is a rather odd mixture, with articles by professional paid staff followed by volunteer bloggers, but it is working to provide a mosaic of interest and perspective.

Why do we all do it?  Partly to fill a perceived need, I believe, and also because the software and easy linking has made it much more possible than in the days when publishing even a newsletter was a big production and expense issue.  I know that the reason I started “Local in Ann Arbor” was that I saw a need to document things I cared about, and to help start a discussion about them.

One of the most impressive local examples of this civic impulse is the new “Other Perspectives” series which is not online, but rather on television.  Nancy Kaplan, a Second Ward resident who has been an adult education teacher and physical therapist, started this series on CTN’s Channel 17 recently.  Here is her reasoning in her own words:

After the Ann Arbor News announced its closing, I was talking with friends about the forthcoming absence of the ‘Other Voices’ column. It seemed then that the News frequently took the perspective of the mayor and council and generally did not support change or welcome a differing perspective. So the idea came up of doing a CTN program that would fill that gap and provide for a more complete perspective on issues and thus the “Other Perspectives.”

Originally the show was to be co-hosted.  While this did not work out, a CTN instructor tutored and guided me through it all.  The program is crewed by volunteers.  I am fortunate to have a  great crew who have been with me for all the shows. The process requires getting a recording date that the crew and guests are willing to commit to. Recording is done in the evening after most of the crew and guests have put in a full days work.

I find the preparation for each show to be like doing a research paper.  I learn a great deal and get to meet some very interesting and community-involved people. My objectives are to discuss topics of interest and importance and to provide information that is well organized for the listener.

This town has a wealth of involved, knowledgeable and articulate residents. My aim is to interview these residents  on a wide range of topics from politics to the arts.  I hope the audience will become engaged and make suggestions as to topics and guests of their interest. I want the program to be informative, interesting, relevant, and, of course, open to other perspectives.

Her  initial one-hour program discussed the politics of Ann Arbor and city council. The second segment looked at the city budget and possible city tax.  Excerpts of these (September) programs are on the Other Perspectives blog. The current shows recorded on Friday,  October 23,  focus on the November 3 ballot issues.  One program discusses the WISD Enhancement Millage Proposal : Pros & Cons.  The second show has two segments: The Charter Amendments A & B— Vote No and  an interview with the 4^th Ward City Council candidate challenger  Hatim Elhady.

Here is the schedule:

Other Perspectives: WISD Millage – Pros & Cons

Premiere:    Tuesday, 10/27         7:30 PM

Replays:     Wednesday, 10/28    10 PM

Thursday, 10/29        2 PM & 7 PM

Friday, 10/30            10 AM & 8 PM

Saturday, 10/31         2:30 PM

Sunday, 11/1            1 PM & 8 PM

Monday, 11/2            2 PM & 6 PM

Tuesday, 11/3           1 PM

Other Perspectives: Ballot Issues  (First half, Dave Askins on charter changes; Second half, Hatim Elhady, candidate, 4th Ward)

Premiere:    Wednesday, 10/28    12:30 PM

Replays:     Wednesday, 10/28    10:30 PM

Thursday, 10/29        2:30 PM & 6 PM

Friday, 10/30            10:30 AM & 8:30 PM

Saturday, 10/31         3 PM

Sunday, 11/1            1:30 PM

Monday, 11/2            2:30 PM, 5:30 PM & 8 PM

*Note: This is a reference to the concept of the “estates of the realm”, first named during the era of the French Revolution as the clergy (First), nobility (Second), and commoners plus everyone else (Third).  Later, journalists were named as the “Fourth Estate”.

UPDATE:  I should have mentioned among the citizen journalists Julie Weatherbee, who has been doing a great service with her Arbor Update reporting on city council agendas.  Julie was part of a panel for the first evening’s discussion that also included Mary Morgan of the Ann Arbor Chronicle and Josie Parker of the Ann Arbor District Library.  The AADL website includes an update on many community issues and a couple of blogs.  It is difficult to place this between “citizen” and “professional” journalism since the Library is a public institution, yet Julie (also a library professional) made the point that the AADL led the way on this type of website for libraries.

SECOND UPDATE: A new print publication, The Bohemian, hit the streets on the weekend of November 14.  Its publisher, Clarence Cromwell, tells me that the November issue will be available (free) at a number of locations.  It will be a monthly and there will be a website, still under development.

THIRD UPDATE:  The Bohemian’s website is now up and going.

FOURTH UPDATE:  Local bloggers should be aware of new FTC guidelines about product endorsements on blogs.

FIFTH UPDATE:  The Bohemian has folded after 3 issues, according to a story on AnnArbor.com.

Keeping Up With the Buzz

Keeping up with Ann Arbor news is more difficult now than it used to be.  As we noted in an earlier post, there are a variety of more or less conventional outlets that are mostly online (and mostly in our blogroll).  The printed word is now barely available on a daily basis.  But part of the trend toward hyperlocal reporting is that numerous other online sources of news, including blogs (like this one) run by individuals, are emerging.  This has been noticed by institutions run for academic and professional journalists like the Knight Foundation, which has established the Knight Citizen News Network.  The site offers a number of resources to guide “both ordinary citizens and traditional journalists in launching and responsibly operating community news and information sites.”  The Knight Foundation evidently has a strong interest in citizen journalism; the oncoming Grand Rapids news source, The Rapidian, is funded by a grant from them.

One of the challenges in getting a real sense of community news online is simply the task of visiting a number of sites every day.  This has been addressed in part by aggregators like Outside.In.  AnnArbor.com, which Outside.In still quaintly calls “the Ann Arbor News”, is also acting as something of an aggregator, pulling up links from other online sources such as the Ann Arbor Chronicle and the Ann Arbor Observer (and this blog), usually with some supporting text wrapped around the link. In addition, they have enlisted an army of bloggers (also known as citizen journalists).  Fwix, which claims to be keeping up with news “in real time” has included Ann Arbor in its Detroit-area scans; they are using blog sources as well.

But to keep up with “the buzz”, what’s going on in our little rain puddle, it is also helpful to check in on local blogs. Of course, most bl0gs are not all news all the time.  Many of them rightfully reflect the owner’s individual preoccupations and can be either very narrowly focused or  really all over the map in subject matter.  Yet they can help to reflect the community conversation of the moment.  Arbor Update is a now venerable group blog that includes some reporting, some aggregating, and a great deal of commentary that can be at times highly informative, thought-provoking, or trivial and annoying (when certain commenters get into rants).  Edward Vielmetti’s blog is another long-standing Ann Arbor blog which comments on his eclectic interests (recently many videos have been added), and he brings his focus on detail and technology to it as well as in his role as a commenter on many other area blogs. On the newer side, the Ann Arbor Tree Conservancy (which originated with a neighborhood group)  is only now organizing its blog, but it already has a news update function (for its chosen subject area) and links to local news sources. I’m not even going to try to make a comprehensive list of local blogs.  Web lurkers will probably pick up on blogs for their specialized areas of interest: for example, I find that for sustainability and local food, two good sources of local news are the Brines Farm blog and the Farmer’s Marketer.

I’d like to hear of new (or old) Ann Arbor blogs that can be a source of news about our community.  So would the Knight Foundation.  They’d like you to submit your site for inclusion in their directory.  Note, their focus is on citizen journalism, not on opinion or action.   If you have a blog or website that features local news, the directory will help scholars – and local readers – find you.

UPDATE: The Poynter Institute is sponsoring a two-day workshop on October 21 and 22  for bloggers and citizen journalists.  The first day is free.  The information is here.

The Ann Arbor Media Flip

Today’s the day – the last day of publication for the Ann Arbor News.  Tomorrow the successor (it has the same publisher, at least) , AnnArbor.com, is formally initiated (they seem to be sneaking up on it today).  So – as I’ve noted in a couple of previous posts, it’ll be up to us to figure out how we get our news.  There’ll never be “the newspaper” again – or at least that particular reality doesn’t seem to be on the horizon.

Of course, this has provoked a good deal of soul-searching and plenty of trips down memory lane, including one by a former reporter, Jeff Mortimer, in the Ann Arbor Chronicle today. Regular readers of the Chronicle will remember a couple of heart-wrenching stories by its publisher, Mary Morgan, who was with the News for many years.   Arbor Update’s Juliew asks some very good questions along the line of What is a newspaper? What is a journalist? What is news?  There is a pretty good discussion, including submissions by actual journalists.  (Okay, I’ve stepped into the swamp of definitions.  A journalist is someone who actually investigates and reports, not someone who merely repeats what they’ve heard and offers opinions.)  (And since you’re asking, I consider myself to be teetering just on the edge of that, but I’m getting a lot of my reporting from other people, and I definitely have opinions.)

So that still leaves us with the question – how do we find out what is going on – the news and the background behind the news?  We’ve been listing sites that seem to convey some actual news about the Ann Arbor area, or at least aggregate it.  Today Ann Arbor Business Review will come off the list, since they are being submerged into AnnArbor.com.

A new addition:  The Michigan Daily.   I didn’t think of it earlier because, frankly, I have not been in the habit of reading a “student newspaper”.  However, a glance at the site shows some pretty serious reporting, not just on student topics, and it is worthy of inclusion.

I won’t be adding our two major NPR stations, for different reasons.  WEMU is an important source for local news (especially listen in the morning just after the top and bottom of the hour); they have long sent reporters to meetings and done original and timely reporting on Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Washtenaw County news.  But as far as I can tell, extensive coverage is not carried over to their website.  On the other hand, though WUOM has a good deal of “Michigan News” on their website, it is rarely local to Ann Arbor.

More blogs and online efforts are likely to pop into this vacuum.  The Ann Arbor News says that Tom Gantert, a longtime reporter for the News, is starting an online political journal called The Michigan Reporter – which he hopes will be funded by grants.  Not a good beginning to read his quote about it.  It is clear between that and his comments on Arbor Update that this transition is not going well for him.

Then there are alternative newsweeklies/newsmonthlies.  Ann Arbor has had a string of them.  The Ann Arbor Observer, of course, has news as well as other types of features, and is still mostly a print publication.  (We’ve put the online version, ArborWeb, on the blogroll.)For many years, one could pick up Agenda, a liberal monthly, free at some newstands.  I haven’t seen it for a long time, though it is still listed as extant.  More recently, I’ve seen a well-produced GLBT paper, Between the Lines. I’m not sure that it is still being printed, but I don’t get to the places like coffee shops where it is likely to be found.  There is also Current, vaguely in the free shopper category, but has finally gotten its website up so that one can read the features and reviews online.

Maybe next someone should start an alternative publication like that now being read in Flint.  It is being passed out for free by volunteers – just like the old broadsides back in the days of the American Revolution.

Update: Today’s Arborweb (Ann Arbor Observer) and Ann Arbor Chronicle have reciprocal links to one another.  Connectivity lives!

Second Update: The Ann Arbor Chronicle has added the Lucy Ann Lance (1290 AM) blog to its “local news” links.

Third Update: The A2Journal, which was supposed to be a print publication delivered to homes weekly, also has a web presence.  We didn’t have a delivery last week (after receiving them for two weeks).  It’s not clear how much actual reporting they are doing.

Fourth Update: The Ann Arbor Chronicle provided this link to a Time Magazine story on the death of the Ann Arbor News.  It reports that the move was a bold business decision rather than a burial.

Ann Arbor Gets a NEWspaper

Breaking news – Heritage Newspapers, the operator of the Chelsea Standard and Dexter Leader, has announced a newspaper (right, the kind on newsprint) to be published weekly starting July 9, according to the Business Review.

The new weekly, to be called A2Journal, is to be  “A free weekly, home-delivered newspaper launching July 9 covering the people, traditions and institutions that make Ann Arbor unique.”

As mentioned earlier, the Ann Arbor News will be closing in July.  Its successor, AnnArbor.com, is said to be planning two print versions a week – Thursday and Sunday.  This was presumably meant to capture the supermarket sale ad market and the government notices market.  It ‘ll be interesting to see whether the new weekly can be a worthy competitor.

Hyper Ann Arbor

Edward Vielmetti, whose ecletic blog Vacuum is global in reach but local in focus, calls attention to new tools to “aggregate, curate, and publish” local news via Outside.in for Publishers.  As I noted in an earlier post, a growing trend toward “hyperlocal” news sites is helping to fill the gap being left by the demise of traditional newspapers.  These pull together numerous online news sources, including some blogs, and sometimes supplement them with governmental notices.  The result is not the same as a traditional newspaper but can help people keep a good information flow about their own locality.

Ed’s post made me take a second look at the Ann Arbor version of Outside.in and it will now appear on our blogroll.  It does a very decent job of pulling news stories from a number of sources, including some I am not familiar with, and giving a brief headline/summary/link in a very timely way. The link to neighborhoods was a little less successful. Using my own neighborhood (they appear to use the Ann Arbor Observer City Guide classifications, which I find less than satisfactory since my humble neighborhood is lumped with the big houses up Newport), I found that some stories were highly relevant and others (like movie reviews!) more general.

Of course, the Ann Arbor Chronicle is moving right along with this hyperlocal reporting (and is very frequently the source for Outside.in).  They do some curating and aggregation themselves (the plural noun is because it is a partnership) and I find their “New Media” and “Old Media” items very helpful, where they pull news and comment from nationwide publications and local blogs.

Yet to be revealed is how effective the new mostly online news from AnnArbor.com will be.  A very good piece of news is that they have hired Edward Vielmetti to be the “blogging leader”.  They’ve been making a number of announcements and appointments and their apparent openness is fairly impressive.  I only recently signed up on their site and took their poll, and this morning I got several updates on decisions on policy.  Apparently they took all the items I gave high points to and are sending me instantaneous status updates.  (I am able to turn off this feature.) If this is not all hype/marketing, it could be good.