Ann Arbor Online Media: Future of Journalism in South Dakota?

Doug Wiken wrote a really good post yesterday about Jim Lehrer's guidelines for good journalism. Bloggers, take heed!

Doug's post sent me looking through the new website for the PBS NewsHour, which is revamping as the 75-year-old Lehrer promotes a new integration of TV and Web on the flagship news program (old dogs, new tricks!). The program has latched on to the Patchwork Nation series put together by Dante Chinni, whom I met summer before last at a citizen journalism conference. Patchwork Nation offers this really interesting story about Ann Arbor, Michigan, where online journalism is filling the vacuum left by the demise of the newspaper:



Could an online media landscape be the future for a place like Sioux Falls, where Gannett might decide it can't afford to keep the presses running and sending trucks out in the dark and the snow every morning? In a post-Argus world, could ThePostSD.com and a dozen blogs become the central voices of the city? Or might that media revolution happen first in South Dakota in a "heavily wired, tech-savvy college town," someplace like, oh, say, Madison?

If it does, fellow bloggers, we'd better reread Lehrer's guidelines.

Hoadley Leads Winning Gay Rights Campaign in Kalamazoo

Here's an election result you won't hear the conservatives celebrating: voters in Kalamazoo, Michigan, passed a ban on discrimination against GLBT folks in public services, housing, and employment by an overwhelming 65–35 margin. Leading the "One Kalamazoo" campaign to pass the ban: South Dakota native Jon Hoadley. Conservative "family" groups tried twice to overturn city action before Kalamazoo leaders turned the issue over to voters. Hoadley was able to help local groups organize a voting drive and win the endorsement of numerous civic groups, including some religious groups.

In a year of Tea Party bluff and bluster, it's good to see Jon successfully fighting to take America back... for all Americans. Nice work, Jon!

I Got a Guy in Kalamazoo: SD Native Hoadley Leads Rights Push

Another South Dakota debater moving and shaking: OneKalamazoo has hired Vermillion native and activist Jon Hoadley to lead a campaign in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to pass a gay-rights ordinance in the city's November 3 election. The local theocracy chapter is quaking in their boots, boo-hooing that Hoadley "has the ability to raise a quarter-million dollars and deliver a cadre of national volunteers" to help pass this city ordinance that would prevent landlords, restaurant owners, and employers from saying, "We don't take your kind" to folks of different sexual persuasions.

If Hoadley has that kind of power, he must be doing something right. Jon, when you get done fighting the good fight in Kalamazoo, come back to South Dakota and help us overturn our silly gay-marriage ban. You almost got us to victory last time; let's try again!