In chat rooms I always caution fellow travelers that the big dogs in the Twin Cities media market are still the Strib, PiPress and City Pages, in that order. Their circulations dwarf that of online challengers like The Rake, Twin Cities Daily Planet and Minnesota Monitor.
But there has been a noticeable shift in personnel lately, and not surprisingly some of the Strib's discarded talent is ending up online.
Just days after he announced he'll be taking a Star Tribune buyout, veteran reporter and blogger Eric Black can answer a big question about his future -- what he'll be doing next. He's been hired to blog for Minnesota Monitor and other sites run by its parent organization, the Center for Independent Media, and he'll be launching his own blog in July.
Black, a 30-year Star Tribune reporter, launched the blog The Big Question in December 2005 and quickly gained a strong following, at one point generating more than 200,000 page views in a single day. In February, he brought on Doug Tice, Star Tribune team leader for politics and government, to blog from a conservative perspective. In an interview Monday, Tice called the blog "a great success" and said that "in terms of bread-and-butter public affairs journalism, it's by far the most advanced success the paper has in its online service."
Now Black will be bringing his insights and reporting talent to Minnesota Monitor and its sister sites, Colorado Confidential and the just-launched Iowa Independent. Like Minnesota Monitor's other bloggers, he'll operate his own site as well, cross-posting to both.
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CIM President David Bennahum sees Black's hiring as part of a larger trend in journalism -- as mainstream papers cut staff, online reporting continues to grow. "Online journalism will be the place that traditional print reporters naturally move to over the course of the next few decades," he said. "We're on the cutting edge of this change. Bringing Eric on board is exciting news for the Center for Independent Media and its sites. While there are national blogs who have hired 'mainstream media' reporters to write on national issues for its online journalism sites, we believe that our model of local coverage is a first of its kind in the United States."
But there has been a noticeable shift in personnel lately, and not surprisingly some of the Strib's discarded talent is ending up online.
Just days after he announced he'll be taking a Star Tribune buyout, veteran reporter and blogger Eric Black can answer a big question about his future -- what he'll be doing next. He's been hired to blog for Minnesota Monitor and other sites run by its parent organization, the Center for Independent Media, and he'll be launching his own blog in July.
Black, a 30-year Star Tribune reporter, launched the blog The Big Question in December 2005 and quickly gained a strong following, at one point generating more than 200,000 page views in a single day. In February, he brought on Doug Tice, Star Tribune team leader for politics and government, to blog from a conservative perspective. In an interview Monday, Tice called the blog "a great success" and said that "in terms of bread-and-butter public affairs journalism, it's by far the most advanced success the paper has in its online service."
Now Black will be bringing his insights and reporting talent to Minnesota Monitor and its sister sites, Colorado Confidential and the just-launched Iowa Independent. Like Minnesota Monitor's other bloggers, he'll operate his own site as well, cross-posting to both.
a
CIM President David Bennahum sees Black's hiring as part of a larger trend in journalism -- as mainstream papers cut staff, online reporting continues to grow. "Online journalism will be the place that traditional print reporters naturally move to over the course of the next few decades," he said. "We're on the cutting edge of this change. Bringing Eric on board is exciting news for the Center for Independent Media and its sites. While there are national blogs who have hired 'mainstream media' reporters to write on national issues for its online journalism sites, we believe that our model of local coverage is a first of its kind in the United States."
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