Newest articles on The Sacramento Press written by Geoff Samek

Why we are against SOPA

2012-01-19T01:32:15Z

As an owner of Macer Media, publisher of The Sacramento Press, I have never made a political statement on this site. Today I will, out of self-preservation, and a concern for what is just and good for this site, and the people of this community in general.

Wikipedia went black Wednesday due to its strong opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Google also voiced its opposition with a link on its homepage. Many other Interenet companies took similar steps.

So the first question is: What is SOPA?

SOPA is a piece of proposed legislation in the House of Representatives aimed at, you guessed it, stopping piracy. The main proponent of the bill is the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and is sponsored by Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). The bill has both strong bipartisan support and strong bipartisan opposition. In other words, this is not at all an issue divided down party lines. Last weekend, the White House came out in opposition to the bill due to concerns about national cyber-security. A very similar bill is to be voted on in the Senate on Jan. 24, called the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

The bill’s proponents claim that the bill is aimed at stopping the piracy of American intellectual property by foreign agents. The Wall Street Journal has an excellent FAQ covering most of the basics of the bill.

So what’s the harm?

Free speech, due process and commercial viability of Internet sites who accept user-generated content are all at risk due to this legislation.

The trouble is in the wording of the bill, which gives the government and copyright holders enormous new powers to stop sites they believe are violating their intellectual property. And while the bill is targeted at foreign agents, nebulous wording would allow for significant compliance and liability costs to be passed along to organizations such as ours. This burden could easily put an organization such as The Sacramento Press out of business.

Even the well-known constitutional lawyer Floyd Abrams, who was paid by the MPAA to write a letter touting the bill, admits that, “When injunctive relief includes blocking domain names, the blockage of non-infringing or protected content may result.” Censoring a little free speech can’t hurt that much, right?

Why SOPA?

That’s a good question and one of my biggest problems with the bill. The bill is premised on the idea the piracy is rampant AND that it causes material harm to the United States in the form of lost jobs and lost revenue. The question is, where’s the proof? Tim O’Reilly, owner of O’Reilly Books and a successful digital and print publisher (owner of lots of intellectual property) says it best:

“There's no question in my mind that piracy exists, that people around the world are enjoying creative content without paying for it, and even that some criminals are profiting by redistributing it. But is there actual economic harm?”

I believe that it should be the burden of the proponents of the bill to prove economic harm before seeking a legislative solution.

There has only been one significant independent study done on international piracy concerns, and one of the conclusions it makes is, “…we see little reason to think that changes in IP protection or enforcement will significantly affect (international piracy).”

This is bad legislation that restricts our rights, is aimed a problem that possibly doesn’t exist and will likely do little to prevent what piracy does.

For these reasons, our company strongly opposes SOPA and PIPA.

I’m happy to answer any question and concerns you might have in the conversation below. Here is a link to the full text of the bill.

Disclosure: I contribute $10 a month to a lobbying effort known as Demand Progress. It currently lobbies against SOPA/PIPA. For more info, visit demandprogress.org.

Sacpress mobile site has landed

2011-09-21T16:06:56Z

As of today The Sacramento Press has an official mobile site. The great thing about this mobile site is that it can be found at the same location as our regular site, it's way more readable on your average smartphone. Our great development team optimized most of the pages on our site for the mobile browsing experience and those pages include:

Sign-up
Log in
Front Page and Tag Pages
User Profiles
Search

The other big feature we are launching is a developer API. An API or Application Programming Interface is a way for someone to interact with our site programatically. So if someone wanted to make an application for a phone or the Web that used our publicly available data, now they can do so easily. You can sign up for an API key at the following location: http://www.sacramentopress.com/usertools/apisignup.

Beyond that, as usual, we have fixed many minor issues and implemented many new tools for our support staff – tools to help our site function better and more effeciently. And though you may not see those tools directly, you will see their results through increased coverage and quality on our site.

I hope you enjoy the new mobile site and API. As always please feel free to send me feedback directly by emailing feedback@sacramentopress.com

Disclosure yourself, or else

2011-07-06T22:13:32Z

You know who you are, but when you write for The Sacramento Press, our readers might not.

That’s part of the impetus behind today’s site update concerning disclosures.

We have added a new section to our “write article” page that pokes and prods everyone from staff to community contributors to disclose personal and professional affiliations to anything discussed in stories.

This update goes hand-in-hand with an update to our terms of use policy, which now requires a disclosure in any circumstance where a contributor has a “personal or professional interest in the subject matter of such article.”

The interface is clean and simple and is just a text area that allows you to add a short description of your affiliation with anything in an article. It’s obviously optional if you don’t have personal involvement with the article!

It also saves your last three unique disclosure statements, so if you regularly need to disclose an affiliation, such as public relations professionals, it is one click to pop in a previous disclosure.

Once you add a disclosure, it will show in a consistent way at the bottom of each article and be offset from the article text, as seen in the screenshot below.

Our goal with this new feature is to make all personal affiliations as clear and transparent as possible. When you have more than 1,000 unique contributors to your site, a mark we just passed last month, it requires an enormous amount of transparency to help build trust. We hope that this update is another step in that direction.

Beta no more

2011-04-21T18:39:43Z

It’s been nearly two and half years since we launched The Sacramento Press, and today we released a few changes (more than just the temporary purple color), one of which is removing the beta stamp from our navigation.

What is a beta stamp, you ask? Well, since you can no longer see it on our site, I grabbed this screenshot of what it used to look like.

Beta generally indicates that a company is still working out the kinks in their core product. But we finally are happy to say we feel pretty happy with what we have, so no more beta!

Does this mean we stop working on new features? Absolutely not. We will in fact bring new and increasingly cool features to The Sacramento Press over the course of this year and beyond.

To that point our co-founder and VP of technology Joel Rosenberg has assembled this quick overview of what else will see changed on our site as of today.

---

Highlighting the Comments of an Article's Author

An article author's comments will now stand out in the conversation. This allows readers to quickly know when the writer may be providing greater detail, correcting a mistake, or just jumping into the action.

No more "107 Weeks Ago"

We're changing how we show the age of comments and articles in search results and lists. Currently, we show how old an article is in terms of minutes, hours, days, and weeks. Now we'll be removing weeks, adding months and showing the year and month an article or comment was published if it's more than a year old.

Facebook and Twitter links

We now promote our official Facebook and Twitter account at the top of every page.

Curated front page RSS feeds

We're adding RSS feeds for all laid-out front pages (and tag pages). This allows us to have a feed that represents curated content that is changed daily. We can give these feeds to third parties knowing that spammy or offensive articles won't show up and surprise us.

Trimming down RSS entries when things change

When we have to fix a typo in an article or when a user updates his comment, some RSS readers will often add a new entry instead of updating the old one. This change will help RSS software see changes as updates to old entries, not new entries.

---

So there you go, lots of new stuff to play with. In the coming weeks, look for even more changes such as video and audio on our homepage and even more exciting features.

Sacpress search, take four

2011-03-17T04:48:45Z

Previously I wrote an article mentioning how search no longer sucked. And while that was true, it wasn’t great either. Yesterday’s improvement to search makes it even more usable.

The biggest difference is that now our search results are displayed in order of relevance, with significant weight given to more recent content, instead of strict chronological order. Chronological order made sense, since, well, we’re a news site and the more current the content, often the more relevant it is. However, sometimes nothing new has been written about what you are searching for, but you still want to find it at the top of your search result. Now we have a balanced mix of relevance and chronology.

We also added exact phrase matching. This means that if you encapsulate your search phrase in quotes, you will only get content that has that exact phrase in it. The nice thing is that most of the time quoting isn’t necessary since we already give lots of value to the order of your search terms.

For a quick visual comparison, check out the screenshots of the searches for strong mayor below.

Notice the difference?

At first glance the searches seem to return identical sets of data, at least for the first two results. But take a closer look.

The number of results for the quoted string is far fewer, 599 versus 3,094. This is because only content that contains the exact phrase “strong mayor” is present. The second search result will have any content that contains the the words “strong” or “mayor” in it, in addition to the content that contain both, even if they are not next to each other.

As usual, please feel free to leave your comments, questions and criticism in the conversation below. Alternatively, you can e-mail me via the newly created suggestions e-mail, suggestions@sacramentopress.com. That email goes directly to me.

Captions, credits and continuing changes on Sacpress

2011-01-18T08:55:23Z

Now you can add captions and credits to images that you upload to the site.

Because we have added captions and credits, the interface has changed for adding pictures to the slide show at the top of each story. The interface will allow you to give yourself a photo credit and assign multiple captions at the same time. Captions are optional, but image credits are required.

You can also rearrange your pictures by simply dragging and dropping the rows into the appropriate order. You drag a picture by clicking the gridded dot icon located just to the left of your picture.

In order to display this new information, we had to change the look and feel of the article’s slide show gallery. Captions and credits will appear next to both the small and large versions of your pictures. If you have never played with the large version of the slide show, you can view it simply by clicking on a picture.

Your image credits will show up on pages that are laid out by our editorial department, such as the front page. You may have already noticed these during the past few weeks. They appear when you hover your mouse over any image.

Check out the slide show for this article – there are several screenshots that illustrate these new features.

Please feel free to ask any questions or put any comments in the conversation below or e-mail me directly at feedback@sacramentopress.com.

Sacpress search updated

2010-11-10T23:40:45Z

Search on our site no longer sucks.

We spent the last few weeks digging up our original search system and revamping it entirely. No longer will you see out-of-date Google search results with duplicate entries. Now you will find custom, up-to-the-minute results parsed into three different types: articles, users and comments.

You’ll also notice that there are now new icons to represent the different content types, and you will find them to be consistent site-wide, not just in the search results.

One other noticeable change is the search box in the navigation bar. Now it is much more visible with a white background and clear in purpose due to the button saying “search” and not just “go.”

All these changes are brought to you by our great tech team, whose newest member, Andy Ford, started only a few weeks ago.

But enough with the explaining, check out some screenshots in the gallery above, or just play with the new search yourself.

Cultivating a healthy comment ecosystem

2010-06-24T10:25:51Z

Comments are a crucial and highly valuable part of our site. The core vision for The Sacramento Press is an open media platform to inspire ongoing, healthy conversations and reporting. In addition, when conversation is lively but civil, we see tangible business benefits in terms of page-views and visitor loyalty.

When conversations are dominated by bullying, name-calling or off-topic comments, we see a tangible loss in terms of unique visitors and page-views. Most importantly, it is a severe detriment to our purpose and philosophy and angers our community.

In the last few weeks we have made big pushes internally to correct this. As head of product development, I have had a big part in these changes. Today we are releasing a revised version of our terms of use that explicitly lays out appropriate behavior for our site. We have also made improvements in our ability to ban and suspend users.

By making that last change we have banned our first user from the site. The user we have banned goes by the moniker “bbbbmer.” Our operations staff has had to remove more than 50 comments from this user, and has sent the user more than 40 e-mails and one official system warning. More than 10 users of varying backgrounds have e-mailed us to complain about comments this user has made. For more than any other reason, we are banning “bbbbmer” because he has single-handedly degraded the quality of conversations on our site, primarily through personal attacks and instigation.

This is a sad day for us. While “bbbbmer” had many comments removed from our site, he also made over 1,000 comments which were not removed and often has been a vibrant and positive member of our online community.

This is only the beginning of our planned changes to the commenting system. We have many more changes in the works, from how we operate to technical changes to policy changes.

I personally have attended conferences and led sessions focused on finding long-term solutions to running a healthy comment system. I attended one such conference in Detroit only two weeks ago.

Please let us know in the conversation below what you think of our decision to ban “bbbbmer” and our changes to our terms of use. And please, be courteous, respectful and civil. I will be here all day answering people’s questions, addressing their concerns and removing comments of those who feel the need to express themselves by violating our terms of use.

Thank you for reading and participating on our site. Let the conversation commence!

We don't need no stinking badges?

2010-02-01T04:27:28Z

How do you know if community contributors on our site are using their real names? How do you distinguish staff reporters from community contributors? How do you know who has been featured on our front page?

This weekend, The Sacramento Press launched badges to address all those concerns and more. Badges come in two varieties: merit and identity. Identity badges identify our users, what they do and their role on our site. The staff of The Sacramento Press assigns all identity badges manually.

Assigning badges will start slowly and take time. We have eight identity badges: Editorial Staff, Sacpress Staff, Editorial Interns, County Government, City Government, Law Enforcement, Fire Department and Verified Community Contributor. When an identity badge is assigned, The Sacramento Press stands behind it.

If you are a community contributor and would like to have your name verified by our staff, you can do so at most workshops as well as some Sacramento Press events.

Over time, we likely will add identity badges to identify different types of users on our site. While badges help to increase transparency on our site they are not a replacement for contributors stating who they are in their profiles and articles.

In addition to identity badges, there are merit badges, which certify achievements by members of our site. Some of them are assigned by our staff, such as workshop badges, while others are assigned automatically by our system, such as front page badges. We hope that merit badges will help readers identify talented and hard-working writers, and encourage community contributors to learn more in order to earn them.

In addition to badges, you will find many other small updates to our site, including new and more prominent RSS feeds on the profile page, as well as the ability to easily browse all of a user's articles and comments.

We hope you like the new features on our site and encourage your feedback. There is always room for improvement, sometimes, lots of room. So please feel free to dig in below with as much constructive criticism as you can think of, plus any questions you might have. We all have thick skins. If the comment section is not your forte, please send your feedback to feedback@sacramentopress.com.

News on paper?

2009-04-27T09:49:17Z

The future of news is not paper. At the same time the future is not necessarily just computers or mobile phones either. These days a new player, in the form of a new medium has entered the fray. That new technology is eInk.

eInk is, much as its name implies, electronic ink. From the eInk website, eInk is described as offering, “...the viewer the experience of reading from paper, while having the power of updatable information.” The key difference between eInk and a computer screen is that it is not backlit like a screen, so it can be viewed in bright sunlight but not in the dark. To retain the image on the screen no power is required.

So does eInk satisfy those that want the feel of newspaper in their hands? No, not yet. Currently it is only available in electronic readers such as Amazon’s Kindle, and the Sony e-Reader. These are rigid products that resemble computers more than newsprint. They are also in a size that is more comparable to a paperback novel than a newspaper. However that may soon be changing, with papers like the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News announcing that they will partner with a company called Plastic Logic on a device that is letter-sized (8.5” x 11”).

Competing technologies will soon bring eInk like materials that are flexible and color, as the currently commercially available devices are all black and white.

Aside from the format itself, the cost saving potential of the medium is evident. Some have estimated that the cost of printing and distributing the New York Times is twice as much as the cost of the Amazon Kindle. With the cost of print rising as well as the price of gas, printing and distribution often accounts for up to 40% of overall newspaper operating costs.

The other difficulty in printing and distributing news via paper is the obvious environmental implication.

In the end, the brows-ability, flexibility and clarity of the printed word still has a large appeal, but new alternatives will find their devotees as well.

While the Sacramento Bee is not currently available on the Amazon Kindle, many papers are moving in that direction. The Sacramento Press is also moving in that direction, as we feel that it is a good contender for being a large part of the future media landscape.

The Sacramento Press policy enforcement change

2009-04-17T13:25:12Z

Until April 14th, 2009 we, at The Sacramento Press, had been lax in enforcing our policies. As of that date we have begun to more strictly enforce our policies.

We strive to be the best source of local news and information in the Sacramento area. We aim to do that with a mix of paid reporting, and contributions from the Sacramento community. However our site is primarily written by community volunteers who submit their content without direct contact with The Sacramento Press

Anyone who lives in Sacramento is welcome to sign up and write for our site with no editorial approval prior to posting. It is a very free system, the only caveat is that you abide by the rules and policies of the site.

While our terms of service, privacy policy and contributor agreement go into depth about our policies, here are a couple of the basic principles.

If you are writing for our site please keep you writing primarily about Sacramento. This site is not intended to inform people about state, national and international news. We want to know what's going on in our neighborhoods and in our area as a whole.
Treat others with courtesy and respect. Do not swear in comments or articles that you write. Do not attack others on the site; debate the issues, not the people.

As we have become increasingly popular these messages have been lost to some of our community contributors and some of our users. We have allowed posts that have had nothing to do with local news and information in Sacramento.

From this point forward we will take down any posts that are in violation of our policies.

Please feel free to comment below or send in your ideas by emailing feedback@sacramentopress.com.

Thank you for being a part of The Sacramento Press.

The business model of news

2009-04-06T12:39:57Z

The current fear goes something like this: "If the newspapers disappear, so does all the real original reporting with it." The basic charge is that there is no business model for "giving away" news online, because online revenue is too miniscule and newspapers spend an enormous amount to get us that amazing original content.

The trouble is that a lot of those assumptions are just plain false. Once you start delving into the numbers those assumptions begin to wash away.

For instance, what does an average major daily pay, in terms of a percentage of its overall budget, for its editorial department? While one's inclination may be to assume that it is a huge portion, the reality is that the number averages between 7 and 10 percent. That means the rest of the cost of running a paper is tied up in printing, distributing, marketing and selling that paper.

Considering those percentages, let's look at McClatchy's 2008 numbers. McClatchy as an organization reported total earnings of approximately $1.9 billion. They also reported online advertising revenue of approximately $180 million. Some quick math indicates that about %9.5 of McClatchy's total revenue came from online advertising. Sound like a familiar percentage?

But that's McClatchy, what about the Bee? While numbers haven't been published breaking down the Bee's costs specifically for 2008, we can make some estimates and compare those with revenue numbers. The revenue numbers can be broken out of the McClatchy reports. Of the $180 million that McClatchy makes in online ad revenue, approximately $30 million comes from California and of that, slightly more than half comes from The Sacramento Bee.

That means that The Sacramento Bee has about $15-16 million in online ad revenue. And if I had $15-16 million dollars I could provide Sacramento with one really stellar newsroom and mountains of daily reporting on the region. But you don't have to take my word for it. In fact the Bee already does provide stellar coverage for near that amount. With approximately $211 million in revenue, it is likely the Bee's editorial department costs in the neighborhood of $15-20 million.

In a recent Bee article Al Tompkins, a Poynter faculty member, was quoted as saying, "Who's going to cover the planning and sewer commissions?" The answer: Geoff Doughtery plans to. Geoff Dougherty of chitowndailynews.com is building a newsroom for approximately $2 million. Click on the link to check out his extensive coverage.

While this analysis is not done by a professional economist, or accountant, it is clear that in general, the news about news, is not as grim as some make it seem. My aim was to ground this panic with a few numbers that make sense of the world we live in, so that we will begin to be able to figure out the new world we are heading for.

Statistics sited in this story can be found in this press release from the McClatchy website.

The future of news, part 2, one week of The Bee

2009-03-30T15:20:48Z

As it is today, could the Sacramento Press replace The Sacramento Bee? In a word, no. However, one word is far from the full story.

In my last installment of this storyline, I outlined the course I was taking in discussing the future of news, with an emphasis paid to local content, since that is what this publication focuses on. Over the course of the last week, I embarked on the rather epic and tedious task of quantifying exactly what is in a week's worth of The Bee.

In order to do this, I purchased a copy each day and as meticulously as possible recorded how many pieces of content The Bee wrote versus content drawn from other publications, and of that content, how much of it was local. The full results of that survey can be found in the article posted previous to this one.

Overall, it is quite impressive how much content that a major daily can put together on any given day of the week. The Bee covers a wide range of subjects and a substantial geographic area. However, it has good days and it has bad days.

If you simply looked at a Monday paper, it would appear that in terms of sheer quantity, The Bee does not necessarily produce more local content than a publication the size of the Sacramento Press. Last Monday, The Bee produced approximately 16 original articles about our region. It produced another 11 about matters beyond the region and filled nearly 62% of its editorial space with content from other publications.

But Monday is far from the full picture, which is why I chose to dissect one week's worth of content and not just one day. On Tuesday, The Bee produced nearly double that many local original pieces, and on Friday nearly 40%, or 49 of 124 pieces, of The Bee was original local content.

If we were to lose that much content today, I think it would be a great loss to the community. However the numbers found in the survey I did are not impossible to achieve with a citizen journalism effort, whose base is the whole of the Sacramento region.

Much of what is reported locally is not muckraking, or in-depth investigative journalism. Much of it can be found in the crime logs and brief digests of events in the region. These are topics which citizen journalists can not only report with equal ability, but with greater interest and passion.

While I am humbled at the monumental effort it takes to put together The Bee every day, and admire the work that goes into it, I do not think it is a resource that is impossible to replicate.

This may even be more the case as of this week. That is because, as David Watts Barton reported here, many of the names I saw last week when compiling my survey will no longer be names I see in the paper, due to layoffs at The Bee. So perhaps last week’s effort is a bit of historical trivia. Time will tell, just as it will confirm my point of view or disprove it.

Please take a close look at the survey and let me know what you think of the results below.

Bee survey

2009-03-30T15:10:10Z

This survey was conducted of The Sacramento Bee, from Monday, March 23rd to Sunday, March 29th. The aim of the survey was to pinpoint how much of the written content of The Bee was written by The Bee and of that content how much was local and how much was not.

Each day was divided into the sections of the paper. Sections of the paper that had no attributable articles were simply not included. Within each section, all the different publications were separated out on to their own lines, with special lines for local Bee content and McClatchy content (from the Washngton bureau, or a foreign bureau).

Each mark per line denotes an attribution for a piece of text.

Shortcomings of this survey:

While thorough, I am not a professional statistician
Images were NOT included as a part of this survey
There was lots of content that had no attribution and was likely organized by editorial staff
Weather was excluded from this survey
There is some degree of subjectivity as to what is local or not, I tended to err on the side of counting more as local

Monday, March 23, 2009
Total: 70
Bee: 27
Bee/Local: 16

A) Front (Total: 25 Bee: 7 Bee/Local: 1)

The Sacramento Bee: ||||| |
The Sacramento Bee Local: |

Associated Press: ||||| ||||| |||
New York Times: ||
Miami Herald: |
Washington Post: |
Oakland Tribune: |
Special to the Bee: |

B) Our Region (Total: 9 Bee: 9 Bee/Local: 9)

The Sacramento Bee:
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||| ||||

C) Sports (Total: 25 Bee: 5 Bee/Local: 4)

The Sacramento Bee: |
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||

Orange County Register: ||
Associated Press: ||||| ||||| ||||
Newsday: ||
New York Times: |
San Jose Mercury News: |

D) Books & Media (Living Here) (Total: 11 Bee: 6 Bee/Local: 2)

The Sacramento Bee: ||||
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Total: 84
Bee: 46
Bee/Local: 30
McClatchy: 4

A) Front (Total: 28 Bee: 11 Bee/Local: 2 McClatchy: 3)

The Sacramento Bee: ||||| |
The sacramento Bee Local: ||
McClatchy: |||

New York Times: ||
Washington Post: ||
Associated Press: ||||| |||||
Los Angeles Times: ||
National Review: |
Special to the Bee: |

B) Our Region (Total: 27 Bee: 24 Bee/Local: 21 McClatchy: 1)

The Sacramento Bee: |||
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||| ||||| ||||| ||||| |
McClatchy: |

Associated Press: |||

C) Sports (Total: 18 Bee: 7 Bee/Local: 5)

The Sacramento Bee: ||
The sacramento Bee Local: |||||

Associated Press: ||||| ||||| |

D) Living Here (Family) (Total: 11 Bee: 4 Bee/Local: 2)

The Sacramento Bee: ||
The sacramento Bee Local: ||

Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Total: 118
Bee: 49
Bee/Local: 34
McClatchy: 3

A) Front (Total: 45 Bee: 11 Bee/Local: 3 McClatchy: 3)

The Sacramento Bee: |||||
The sacramento Bee Local: |||
McClatchy: |||

New York Times: |||||
Associate Press: ||||| ||||| ||||| ||||| |
Los Angeles Times: |||||
Washington Post: |
Kathleen Parker (Washington Post?): |
San Diego Union Tribune: |

B) Our Region (Total: 32 Bee: 24 Bee/Local: 21)

The Sacramento Bee: |||
The sacramento Bee Local: ||||| ||||| ||||| ||||| |

Associated Press: ||||
Fresno Bee: |
New York Times: |

C) Sports (Total: 19 Bee: 9 Bee/Local: 7)

The Sacramento Bee: ||
The sacramento Bee Local: ||||| ||

Associated Press: ||||| ||
Newsday: |
Ventura County Star: |
San Jose Mercury News: |

D) Food & Wine (Living Here) (Total: 8 Bee: 5 Bee/Local: 3)

The Sacramento Bee: ||
The Sacramento Bee Local: |||

New York Times: |
Washington Post: |
Chicago Tribune: |

E) Fun & Games (Total: 4 Bee: 0 Bee/Local: 0)

Universal Press Syndicate: |
Horoscopes: |
MarketWatch: |
Gloria Glyer: |

Thursday, March 26, 2009
Total: 89
Bee: 53
Bee/Local: 34
McClatchy: 5

A) Front (Total: 27 Bee: 14 Bee/Local: 4 McClatchy: 4)

The Sacramento Bee: ||||| |
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||
McClatchy: ||||

Los Angeles Times: |
Associated Press: ||||| ||||| ||||| ||
New York Times: |||||
Washington Post: ||
Denver Post: |
Public Policy Institute: |

B) Our Region (Total: 32 Bee: 26 Bee/Local: 20 McClatchy: 1)

The Sacramento Bee: ||||| |
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||| ||||| ||||| |||||
McClatchy: |

Associated Press: |||
Fresno Bee: |
Washington Post: |
San Jose Mercury News: |

C) Sports (Total: 21 Bee: 11 Bee/Local: 8)

The Sacramento Bee: |||
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||| |||

Washington Post: |
San Jose Mercury News: |
Associated Press: ||||| |||

D) Outbound (Living Here) (Total: 9 Bee: 2 Bee/Local: 2)

The Sacramento Bee:
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||

Friday, March 27, 2009
Total: 124
Bee: 68
Bee/Local: 49
McClatchy: 1

A) Front (Total: 34 Bee: 13 Bee/Local: 5 McClatchy: 1)

The Sacramento Bee: ||||| |||
The Sacramento Bee Local: |||||
McClatchy: |

New York Times: ||||
Associated Press: ||||| ||||| |||
Los Angeles Times: |
Anna Tuttle Villegas (individual): |
Washington Post: |
Tribune Media: |

B) Our Region (Total: 31 Bee: 27 Bee/Local: 26)

The Sacramento Bee: |
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||| ||||| ||||| ||||| ||||| |

Associated Press: ||||

C) Sports (Total: 26 Bee: 8 Bee/Local: 6)

The Sacramento Bee: ||
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||| |

Associated Press: ||||| ||||| |||||
Washington Examiner: |
San Jose Mercury News: |
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: |

D) Drive (Total: 3 Bee: 0 Bee/Local: 0)

Wheelbase Communications: ||
Click and Clack: |

Ticket (Total: 6 Bee: 4 Bee/Local: 4)

The Sacramento Bee:
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||

Tribune News: ||

Movie Guide (Total: 9 Bee: 4 Bee/Local: 1)

The Sacramento Bee: |||
The Sacramento Bee Local: |

Associated Press: |
Orlando Sentinel: ||
Miami Herald: |
St. Petersburg Times: |

J) Style (Total: 15, Bee: 12, Bee/Local: 7)

The Sacramento Bee: |||||
The sacramento Bee Local: ||||| ||

Washington Post: |
Horoscopes: |
United Media: |

Saturday, March 28, 2009
Total: 100
Bee: 48
Bee/Local: 32
McClatchy: 2

A) Front (Total: 30 Bee: 10 Bee/Local: 2 McClatchy: 2)

The Sacramento Bee: ||||| |
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||
McClatchy: ||

New York Times: |||
Associated Press: ||||| ||||| ||||
Los Angeles Times: |
Special to the Bee: |
National Review: |

B) Our Region (Total: 25 Bee: 21 Bee/Local: 16)

The Sacramento Bee: |||||
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||| ||||| ||||| |

Associated Press: |||
New York Times: |

C) Sports (Total: 26 Bee: 11 Bee/Local: 9)

The Sacramento Bee: ||
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||| ||||

San Jose Mercury News: |
Associated Press: ||||| ||||| |||
Special to the Bee: |

D) Home & Garden (Living Here) (Total: 14 Bee: 6 Bee/Local: 5)

The Sacramento Bee: |
The Sacramento Bee Local: |||||

Heloise.com: |
UC Cooperative Extension: |
Baltimore Sun: |
King Features Syndicate: ||
Creators Syndicate: |
Orlando Sentinel: |
McClatchy Tribune: |

E) Fun & Games (Total: 5 Bee: 0 Bee/Local: 0)

Sunday, March 29, 2009
Total: 134
Bee: 57
Bee/Local: 35
McClatchy: 3

A) Front (Total: 28 Bee: 5 Bee/Local: 0 McClatchy: 3)

The Sacramento Bee: ||
The Sacramento Bee Local:
McClatchy: |||

Associated Press: ||||| ||||| ||||
Bee news service: |
Los Angeles Times: |
Fresno Bee: |
Washington Post: ||||
New York Times: ||

B) Our Region (Total: 13 Bee: 12 Bee/Local: 11)

The Sacramento Bee: |
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||| ||||| |

Oroville Mercury-Register: |

C) Sports (Total: 29 Bee: 8 Bee/Local: 7)

The Sacramento Bee: |
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||| ||

New York Times: |
Newsday: |
Dayton Daily News: |
Associated Press: ||||| ||||| |||
News & Observer: |
Denver Post: |
Dallas Morning News: |
Los Angeles Times: |
Charlotte Observer: |

D) Business (Total: 13 Bee: 0 Bee/Local: 0)

Associated Press: |||
Los Angeles Times: ||
The Motley Fool: |
Wall Street Journal: ||||| ||

E) Forum (Total: 12 Bee: 6 Bee/Local: 1)

The Sacramento Bee: |||||
The Sacramento Bee Local: |

Special to the Bee: ||
New York Times: |
Washington Post: ||
Miami Herald: |

L) Health & Fitness (Living Here) (Total: 18 Bee: 11 Bee/Local: 5)

The Sacramento Bee: ||||| |
The Sacramento Bee Local: |||||

New York Times: |
McClatchy Newspapers: |
United Feature Syndicate: |
Universal Press Syndicate: |
Washington Post: ||
Horoscopes: |

Explore (Arts & Travel) (Total: 21 Bee: 15 Bee/Local: 11)

The Sacramento Bee: ||||
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||| ||||| |

The future of news

2009-03-23T05:45:51Z

Newspapers are in peril. There is very little doubt about that, and if you are somehow doubting that, I point you to last week’s news that the revenues of the world’s most-read newspaper, USA Today, are likely down year over year 30%. Aside from industry-wide declining revenues, last week also saw the closure of the Rocky Mountain Post News and the end of the print edition of the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

From these events a heated discussion was born. What is the future of news, and if newspapers are heading the way of the Dodo, who will report the news? The goal of this storyline is to address those very serious questions, especially from a local news angle. Over the course of the next few weeks I intend on exploring, in great detail, the nature of the problem, how it affects our local news and eventually why the sky is not, in fact, falling.

In this process I want to present opinions from many perspectives, but I want to be very clear that I do not see a future for printed media delivered each day to millions of homes covering a wide variety of general interest stories. This is of course an editorial, and that is my perspective. With this loss I don’t see an end to the reporting and journalism that is vital to our society.

This optimism may cause some to inform me that I should put my money where my mouth is. In this regard I have already gladly obliged. I am the editor in chief of this publication, and the co-founder of Castle Press L.L.C., the company that publishes it. With that company and this publication I have done exactly what many critics have suggested someone with my viewpoint do – take action.

While publications and companies may fall, the news never dies. Quality analysis and reporting no more requires printing presses and the companies that run them, than transportation requires horses, buggies and the companies that bred and manufactured them.

To do this I plan on addressing the problem by discussing these points:

What we stand to lose in terms of information, by precisely recording stats from one week of the Bee.
What the current business model of newspapers is and how this can be covered online. A general overview will be given as well as a close look at the Bee specifically.
What do we lose in terms of the medium itself, paper, and what are the options: paper, computer screen and ePaper/eInk.
Our vision of the future incorporating all the points made in the previous articles and discussing the role of citizen journalism

This is a contentious issue and I would love to have the feedback of our readership to help me shape this storyline and how it is written. Please share your comments below and do your homework by reading some of the opinions that are currently out there, as linked to below.

Clay Shirky, Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Morford, Die, Newspapers, Die?
Steve Johnson, Old Growth Media and the Future of News
Dave Winer, If you don’t like the news

Interviewing Techniques workshop March 19th

2009-03-16T05:34:54Z

Don't miss out on our next workshop, Interviewing Techniques, which will be held this Thursday, March 19, from 6:30 - 8 p.m.

Stephen Magagnini will be leading an interactive workshop on how to make the most out of interviews, which will help to improve the quality of your writing, whether it be for school, Sacramento Press or your career.

Magagnini has taught journalism, advanced composition, investigative reporting and narrative writing at UC Davis.

He continues to teach professional journalists how to do their jobs better as part of USC's Institute for Justice and Journalism and Health Journalism Fellowships, and the American Press Institute's seminars on compelling writing.

He's been teaching professionals for many years, and has done so at Columbia, Poynter, Harvard and USC. Arlene Morgan of Columbia University has called him “one of the finest teachers of beat reporting in the country,” and in 2001 Columbia gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award “for outstanding coverage of race and ethnicity in America.”

His stories have won numerous local, state and national awards, and his work appears in the anthologies Best Newspaper Writing 2001 and 2002.

We'll be serving food promptly at 6:30 p.m., and the workshop will start at 6:45 p.m., ending around 8 p.m.

Our office is located at 431 I Street, Suite 107 in the Amtrak Station. The parking spaces are not free, so try and find street parking if you can. If you are able to take light rail to our office, we will have passes to give you. We'll give you two - one to cover your ride here and one to cover your ride back.

Please RSVP by e-mailing colleen@sacramentopress.com, so we know how many people to expect.

This article was written by Colleen Belcher of The Sacramento Press.

Free journalism ethics workshop

2009-02-18T06:06:50Z

Are you looking for an excuse to come meet the staff of the Sacramento Press? Come join us for our next workshop on Feb. 25th from 6:30-8 p.m.

Molly Dugan, an assistant professor of journalism and communication studies at Sac State, will be leading the workshop on Journalism and Ethics. She'll be discussing how ethics come into play when we write and publish articles.

We'll be serving food and drinks at our office.

Our last workshop had a fantastic turnout, with more than 30 people in attendance. We'll continue to hold more workshops covering a variety of topics. If you have any suggestions for future workshops, please send them to colleen@sacramentopress.com or comment below.

We look forward to seeing you next Wednesday! Please RSVP to Colleen at colleen@sacramentopress.com so we can have a good idea of how many people will be showing up to the workshop.

Our office is located at 431 I Street, Suite 107, inside the Amtrak Station. We have light rail passes for those who use RT; we'll give you two passes when you get here. One will be to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back. Give us a call if you have any trouble finding the office, 916-443-5403.

Free journalism workshop

2009-01-26T00:02:11Z

We are now in our fourth month of operation, and we are happy to see the growing number of community members writing for our site. I'm sure there are many of you who have been reading but are hesitant to post your own story.

You may feel like you aren't a good enough writer, or you may not know what you should be writing about. Whatever the reason may be for you not writing, we'd love to get you to change your mind by attending our next workshop.

The next scheduled workshop, titled Intro to Journalism, will take place from 6:30-8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 3.  Holly Heyser, a journalism professor at Sacramento State, will be discussing how to discover news in your everyday life and how to go about making it into an article.  We will have food for dinner, so bring your appetite for food and news.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107 at the Amtrak Station. If you take Light Rail, we will give you two free passes to cover your ride to the office and back.  Please tell anyone who may be interested in learning more about our site and journalism in general.  We look forward to meeting new faces and hopefully many future writers!

This article was written by Colleen Belcher. Colleen is the Journalism Support Manager at The Sacramento Press.

Sac Press navigation changes

2009-01-01T12:24:08Z

With the start of a new year we, at The Sacramento Press, have decided to update the sections that are present on our navigation bar. As we expand out of our initial test area and cover more of Sacramento, we wanted to update our primary sections accordingly.

Despite the change in the navigation bar our focus remains the same, to be the best source of news and information in the Sacramento area.

Additionally we have found that many contributions to our site are about various cultural topics, such as movies, art and entertainment and so we wanted to include that as well as several other new sections.

While the new sections are more traditional in nature nothing about the way we deliver and cover local content is traditional. We need your help, the help of the whole Sacramento community, in order to tell all the stories in our fair city. So many stories go untold and we are here to provide the community with a means to tell those stories.

What if your story doesn't fit well into one of the above categories?

Not a problem. Each of the sections is merely a tag, or label, describing what a story is about. So our paper can have an infinite number of sections, just not all of them will be present in our top navigation bar.

Over time the sections will change and be updated based on the content we receive and the interests of our readers.

We are here to serve our readers and the Sacramento community.

So please feel free to let us know what you think of the new sections and if you have any recommendations or any other comments, please note them in the conversation below.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to reading all the untold stories going on everyday in our town.

Geoff Samek, Editor in Chief.

Air raid or 11a.m. annoyance?

2008-12-28T12:17:34Z

At 11a.m. on the last Friday of each month I hear a high pitched noise for 2 minutes. This noise is emanating from one of many civil defense, or air raid sirens that were first built for World War 2.

Although I hear this high pitched noise at my office, the photos in this article are actually of an air raid siren located in front of Mulvaney's Building and Loan on 19th Street between L Street and Capital.

In this storyline I plan to find out the definitive answers to who built all the sirens, why they still are tested and how the whole system works. My journey has started at the library and will continue tomorrow with an interview of Mike Grace who is the one who actually flips the switch on the system each month.

The Sacramento News and Review interviewed Grace over 3 years ago, however the article failed to get to the bottom of why the sirens still sound and what the history of the system is. I plan to pick up where the article left off.

Have you heard these sirens? Is there one in your neighborhood? If you have any additional questions about the sirens of the civil defense system, ask them in the conversation below and I will attempt to find the answers in my research.

2nd Sacramento Press workshop: Intro to journalism

2008-12-15T08:04:38Z

Sign up for our site and come on down to our office for free food and a great interactive workshop taught by Holly Heyser, Sacramento State Professional Journalist in Residence.

The workshop will be from 6:30pm - 8:00pm Thursday, December 18th at The Sacramento Press office. We will start with food and refreshments, move on to quick introductions and then the interactive workshop.

Please R.S.V.P. by Wednesday, December 17th, and do so by emailing journalism@sacramentopress.com.

The workshop will be aimed at finding the news that goes on in our lives and how to report it following basic journalistic principles.

Parking is available in our lot however it can be rather pricey, $1.50 per half an hour. Street parking is usually available and free at that time of day. A good option is to take a bus or take light rail.

To take light rail you will want to take the Gold light rail line to Sacramento Valley Station, the last stop.
To take the bus simply take the 30 or 31 bus line which also has its last stop at the Sacramento Valley station.

If you take a bus or light rail and bring your ticket from the trip into the workshop we will give you 2 new tickets.

I look forward to seeing a lot of new faces at this Thursday's workshop and hopefully some familiar ones.

Writing format and style

2008-12-07T01:25:13Z

Format and writing style is about more than just looks. How you format your writing might make the difference between people reading your article or passing it by.

One of the trickiest parts of news writing is keeping things brief and to the point.

Stylistically this means paragraphs that don't exceed two sentences. While it seems excessive, if you read any major newspaper you will realize that this rule is nearly universal.

By adding whitespace an article seems more readable; huge paragraphs deter readers.

Good grammar, spelling and punctuation, is another important part of having your work read. Proofread your work, or have another person proofread it.

If you have no one to proofread your work we, at The Sacramento Press, will proofread your work for you. To do this, simply send us your article at journalism@sacramentopress.com.

We will edit your work and send you the edited version. Our goal is not to change your message, just to make it the best version of your work possible.

There are many more style guidelines that we abide by here at The Sacramento Press and in the next update I will post a list of the most important of those guidelines.

Free food, first Sac Press workshop

2008-12-01T04:07:28Z

One big resource that The Sacramento Press provides all of our writers, are all the workshops that we will be hosting.

The first of those workshops is this Thursday. In order to attend you must sign up for the site as a writer and email us that you are interested in coming, it's very simple.

This workshop will be one of many that we will put on. This first workshop will focus on meeting the people who run The Press and how to best use our tools.

The workshop will be from 6:30pm - 8:00pm Thursday, December 4th at The Sacramento Press office.

We'll start off with a little bit of food and introductions and move on to an interactive talk about how to use our site and what it can do for you.

Parking is available in our lot however it can be rather pricey, $1.50 per half an hour. A good option is to take a bus or take light rail.

To take light rail you will want to take the Gold light rail line to Sacramento Valley Station, the last stop.
To take the bus simply take the 30 or 31 bus line which also has its last stop at the Sacramento Valley station.

If you take a bus or light rail and bring your ticket from the trip into the workshop we will give you 2 new tickets.

Above is a map of our office, and here is a link to a similar map.

Please R.S.V.P. by Wednesday, December 3rd, and do so by emailing journalism@sacramentopress.com.

I look forward to seeing lots of new people!

Tilted boxes, Black Friday

2008-11-29T08:30:11Z

This Black Friday seemed to be the year of the flat screen televisions. In almost every cart at Fry's Electronics was a giant flat screen TV sitting in a tilted position in carts.

Shopping on Black Friday is pure insanity. It's the frenzy of the event that has drawn me in for the second year.

Fry's Electronics this year was no exception. This was my first Black Friday at Fry's.

Black Friday gets its name from the economics of the day. Generally it's the day of the year when retailers become profitable or "go into the black." And it's always the Friday after Thanksgiving.

As with many establishments, when I showed up at 4:30 A.M. I was about 800th in line. The line took me to parts of the Fry's Parking lot I didn't even know existed.

The fun part about the line was that even though there were about 800 people in line in front of us, there were probably about 200 or more people in line behind us. However the line moved quickly as the store is enormous.

Once we hit the inside of the store people started running to the bargains. I however had little on my agenda. There were few deals that seemed that alluring this year.

In the end I didn't buy the Blu-Ray DVD player that I thought I might. Even so the excitement of the whole event made it all worthwhile.

Plus by getting all your shopping done in the wee hours of the morning, you can make the early bird special breakfast at Cornerstone Restaurant. This is an amazing way to wrap up a frenzied morning of post Thanksgiving shopping, with even more food.

Were you out before dawn on Black Friday? Have any fun experiences to share? Do you have any traditions related to this consumer holiday? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section below.

Appetite Enhancement Ride

2008-11-28T06:43:47Z

Food, drink and riding bikes sums up the Appetite Enhancement Ride in a sentence.

This event has been taking place for over 20 years. This year was my first experience with the event and due to its traditional occurrence on Thanksgiving I only had a chance to be there an hour or so in the morning.

All it took was a quick ride over from our office at 431 I street, to the Towe Museum on Front Street. By the time we rolled up there were already a couple of hundred people there, scattered throughout the parking lot.

The spread was impressive; there were great looking, and tasting, pastries, coffee and even oysters.

People were working the crowd selling raffle tickets for $1 each. The proceeds went to charity.

The people attending the event were completely varied. There were middle aged cyclists in full cycling gear, bearded younger guys, people in wigs, and one uniting factor, a whole lot of crazy bicycles.

Many of the bicycles are pictured in the slideshow above. A few of the notable standouts were a high wheel bicycle and a bicycle welded to another bicycle for the purpose of supporting a mobile drum kit.

The mood was festive, people were talkative and the bikes were impressive.

Next year I plan on sticking around for the actual bike ride.

Did you attend the Appetite Enhancement Ride this year? Have you attended it in years past? Tell me about it in the comment section below.

What's front page worthy?

2008-11-24T04:59:51Z

Any article written about local Sacramento topics and covered in a clear, concise and well written language is worthy of our front page.

Not everyone is a great writer. If you have an interesting topic about which you'd like to write, but worry that your writing is not up to snuff, that isn't a problem.

Send us your writing, we'll clean it up and send it back to you. Then you can post with the confidence that it will look professional.

In a physical paper the top half of the newspaper is called, "above the fold." The bottom half is what's known as, "below the fold."

On our website we have a similar notion. Above the first leader board ad is what we refer to as, "above the fold." That content is chosen by our editorial staff.

We also chose the content that goes, "below the fold." Both folds serve to tell you the reader what is the most valuable content on our site in any given day.

The content that we choose for the 2 folds is content that we stand behind. It is content that we believe is truthful, accurate and interesting. This content does not lack opinion.

It also does not represent the opinion of The Sacramento Press, it represents the opinion of the person writing the article, those opinions will vary by writer.

Lastly we have a list of the newest content on the site. That content is completely unfiltered at the time is posted to the site. There is no editing, and no editorial oversight by the staff at The Sacramento Press.

However, if an article violates our terms of use, it will be removed. You in the community can help us find the bad content by flagging it. You can also help us find the great content by rating it with a, "thumbs up."

By working together, you the reader and us the staff, we can give you a the best news and information from around our region.

Free workshops at The Sacramento Press

2008-11-19T09:52:05Z

From learning journalism basics to photo editing to learning about new Internet technologies The Sacramento Press provides workshops to all of our Community Contributors absolutely free.

Our workshops will have food and refreshments at no cost. We are located at the REA building next to the Amtrak building at 5th and I Street.

Our goal is keep most workshops to 20 people or less, but to put them on as frequently as possible, starting in the next few weeks.

What's the catch? All you have to do is sign up to write for the site. It's just two simple forms and you're in. Then when a workshop is announced just email us for a spot.

Why would The Sacramento Press do this?

Because we want you to write for us. Beyond just writing for us, we want you to write the best articles you are capable of writing and we want to help you do that. Lots of writing, and good writing, translates into more people reading and more people reading translates into our paper's success.

As workshops are planned check back on this storyline for more information.

Do you have more questions about our workshops? Ask your questions in the conversation below this story or write our journalism support department at journalism@sacramentopress.com.

Everything is news

2008-11-19T09:32:04Z

I challenge you, the readers of our publication to see the news that is going on all around you.

Kevin Johnson thanked his supporters on the corner of 5th and I Street 500 feet from the front door of our office.

Several weeks ago the entire Sacramento Federal Courthouse emptied out for a fire drill and marched across the street invading the local Starbucks and our parking lot.

The last Friday of every week all the air raid sirens positioned around Sacramento blare loudly at 11 A.M. Have you heard them? Did you ever ask why?

The picture above depicts all the construction going on at the Amtrak station, which is undergoing quite a transformation.

The Sacramento Press is a place for you to ask questions. It's a place for you to get answers. And most importantly it's a place where you can tell everyone.

A question that people frequently ask me is, what can I write for your paper? The simple answer is any local news.

What qualifies as local news? Just about everything.

Do you dislike the fact that your neighbors leave their trash cans out too long? Contact The Sacramento Press about who you can call to do something about it. Then write about what you found out.

That is news, and it's news that you can report on.

November NAG meeting

2008-11-18T04:43:12Z

NAG stands for Neighborhood Advisory Group and is a group of concerned citizens who meets to talk about their concerns with Neighborhood Services Area 1 of the City of Sacramento.

Each night starts out with a police update. This week's update was presented by Lt. Mike Bray of the Sacramento Police Department. The top three issues brought up were:

Several instances of cat burgluary in the downtown region
Graffiti, "KKK" spray painted on several buildings downtown
Copper theft

Charles Ortner then presented about police coverage of several entertainment venues in Midtown. The police coverage is being paid for by the businesses themselves at $68/hr per officer. The presence of these off duty officers is often enough to deter many would be law breakers.

After a few quick presentations, the floor opens for any announcements and usually several are made. From announcing the opinions about the McKinley Village Project to talking about Christmas decorations.

Then the meeting proceeds on to issue updates, where on going issues are talked about, from Mercy Hospital to the B Street Theater.

Lastly are the presentations. These presentations range from new housing developments to announcing and explaining things like The Sacramento Press. Each presenter gets a varying amount of time, but this week, each presenter had approximately 30 minutes to get their point across and answer questions from citizenry.

Emily Halcon with the Sacramento Housing & Redevelopment Agency, made the first presentation about inclusionary housing.

Next up, Tom Zeidnor spoke about a new waste-to-energy facility for the Sacramento area.

Lastly, Ben Ilfeld of The Sacramento Press, presented our newspaper to NAG, which is where I posted this story.

Light Rail is a success

2008-11-15T06:52:52Z

50,000 people a day on average ride light rail. That to me is a success. Of course it can always improve.

Gas prices are coming down, but that's no reason not to still take light rail.

While light rail may not be the ideal choice for everyone, if you live outside the City of Sacramento and need to get to the center of town, there is hardly a better way to go

I take light rail to work often. There is a station about 3 blocks from my home at 23rd and R St. and it lets off right at my office. This makes it an inexpensive and convenient choice of transportation.

I often hear people making excuses s to why they shouldn't take light rail. One of the excuses I hear often is that Light Rail isn't safe. In my experience it has been exceptionally safe. But for those who are concerned with its safety here is a quote from the RT website about their system policing:

"Police Services current staffing consists of one lieutenant, three sergeants, 22 officers/deputies, 17 transit officers and 50 security guards. Police Services personnel patrol the system by car, bicycle and foot, as well as riding the light rail trains and buses."

Beyond just feeling safe many people who right light rail are very polite and out going. Just today I had a very nice conversation with a fellow rider. This is a frequent occurrence on light rail, pleasant people engaging in conversation.

What are your experiences riding light rail? What do you like about light rail as it exists today? What about it deters you? Please comment below with your thoughts and experiences with light rail.

Photo courtesy of FreeFoto.com

Two way today

2008-11-13T10:18:42Z

This afternoon, the 13th of November 2008, N Street from 21st to 28th will no longer be a one way street.

All the new traffic lights are in, the new signs and everything else necessary for the conversion. It will be interesting to see how the city handles the actual switch over. Right now there are cars parked on both sides of the street in the same direction.

The total cost of the whole switch was $188,000 and was funded by the Measure A half cent sales tax. What's more, the conversion is not the last of the traffic changes bound for Midtown and Downtown.

The city commissioned a study into two-way conversions which was initiated over 7 years ago. So these changes have been a long time in the making. I plan on digging into these documents on the city's website and posting more about the rationale for the change.

For the time being, here is a list of other upcoming changes to streets in the Central City:

J Street (30th Street to Alhambra Boulevard, to two-way, to be completed summer, 2010)
9th Street (E Street to I Street, to two-way, to be completed early 2009)
10th Street (E Street to I Street, to two-way, to be completed early 2009)

For the "quickest" rationale for the conversion check out this page. The short explanation is that two way streets will make for slower flowing cars and safer more livable streets for the current residents.

Lookout for the changes and let me know what you think of the rationale for them.

KJ v Colbert

2008-11-12T10:00:17Z

Sacramento is not always a town that's on the national scene, but tonight it was. Our new Mayor-Elect Kevin Johnson was the main interview on The Colbert Report.

The Colbert Report is a program on Comedy Central that centers around Stephen Colbert and his far right on air persona.

While this storyline is generally about all news that takes place within 6 blocks of my apartment, tonight's news took place inside my apartment, KJ's appearance on The Colbert Report.

During the interview KJ more than held his own in an interview that is usually a tough challenge. The result of which is that KJ actually challenged Mr. Colbert. And that challenge is of local signifigance, he challenged Colbert to bring his cameras to Sacramento.

At the end of the interview Mr. Colbert claimed that he had just given Sacramento the Colbert Bump, bringing greater visibility and prosperity to Sacramento.

This will be an interesting story to keep track of since the next update may be covering Colbert himself visiting Sacramento. Keep your eyes peeled, Colbert may soon poking around and poking fun of our fair city.

Freeway painting

2008-11-12T08:44:27Z

For some time now the overpass of Interstate 5 over the Amtrak parking lot has been in the process of being repainted. It was a dull green and now it's a much more vibrant green.

The basic question that I have is; why do we need to repaint the bottom side of an overpass at all? It's not as though many people see the bottom of I-5.

In the follow up to this introduction to the issue I plan on finding out what part of government is responsible for this maintenance, what the cost to the taxpayer is, what the impetus behind the repainting is and how long the project will take.

Are there projects like this going on in your neighborhood too? What do you think of them?

N Street, one way no more

2008-11-09T07:25:36Z

Lane changes will initiate on N street as of November 13th. It has already begun the process of turning into a two way street, from the one way street it currently is.

It's part of a larger project converting several one way streets in Midtown to two way streets.

The City of Sacramento, on their website, states that there will always be one lane of traffic available on these streets, but I must admit I will be sad to see my street change its status.

While it can be an annoyance to deal with one way streets when you are just visiting Midtown, it's fairly convenient for those that live here. When driving home I can park on either side of the street without much effort.

There's also the sense of knowing something that not many people know, really knowing your way around town.

Do you love or hate the one way streets in Midtown? What do you love or hate about them?

Off track, Amtrak parking

2008-11-03T10:22:29Z

Our office, The Sacramento Press office, is located at 431 I Street right next to the Sacramento Valley Station. We share a parking lot with the train station.

Parking at this location is not a pleasant experience. The lot serves as parking for our building, the train station and often times the Sacramento Federal Court house.

Most days I choose not to drive to work, firstly because I prefer to use the very convenient light rail option, but secondly because the parking situation is so terrible.

By 10 a.m., the lot is almost certainly full and the few remaining spots are almost always 2 hour spots, not suitable for those hoping to park and ride the train.

After finally finding a spot most travelers are unaware that the most difficult aspect of parking still lies ahead, the parking kiosks. While there are small black signs sprinkled throughout the lot that inform people to remember their space number, that fact often goes overlooked.

Many times I will assist parking lot patrons who have not remembered their space number. Then there are those who remember their space but assume that the letter 'C' on each spot is a part of the number. 'C' in this case stands for "Compact" but try and tell that to a frustrated motorist who can't locate the letter 'C' on the keypad of the kiosk.

And last but not least is the question that almost every person has but is mentioned nowhere in the parking lot; do you need to put your parking slip in your car?

The answer seems to be no, but I will consult the City of Sacramento and find out all the facts.

Until then, share your troubles parking in the Amtrak parking lot in the conversation below. Do you have different problems than the ones mentioned above? Do you have any suggestions for how the lot might be improved?

Minor flooding, rainy season kicks off

2008-11-02T07:28:56Z

I love the rain. It reminds me that we are heading toward a cozy and pleasant time of year. And it sure has rained in the last couple of days. So much so that not 50 feet from my front door, I've witnessed the first flood of the year.

Admittedly that flood is just a stopped up storm drain, but it reminds me of all the floods we have had in Sacramento and makes me feel at home. Beyond the fun of a few stopped storm drains, the current weather has allowed me to test out a new service available in Sacramento, 311.

This was my first call to 311 and it was by and large a great success. A chipper person answered the phone and I was able to find out that the city of Sacramento already has people out in the field helping with clogged storm drains.

Beyond that I could request that the city take a look at my intersection if it was particularly bad.

What do you think about the rain? Is it a part of the year you look forward to in Sacramento? What about 311, have you ever tried using it? Share your experiences in the conversation below and let me know what you think.

Haunted house? Eerie for sure.

2008-11-01T02:55:48Z

It's halloween. And this new storyline is about news taking place 6 blocks from my house. And about 6 blocks from my house is something rather pertinent on this particular holiday.

A stroll through Evangiline's in Old Sacramento today leaves no doubt that the holiday is as popular as ever and in full swing.

But there's the commercial Halloween that most of us have come to view as the holiday and then there are those that look beyond the candy and the costumes for something more sinister. And while personally I am not a fan of the occult, strolling passed the house at 22nd and H Street, might give anyone a chill.

In the middle of the day, at dusk or the middle of the night, the house demands your attention. The wrought iron fence, the dead and dying lawn and the stone around the base of the house seems straight out of a horror movie.

Notice in the pictures above, that one light is on and one is off. Notice all the dirt on the outside of the house, but also note that the house is in really good shape despite the grime.

The house dominates the intersection. It's stately and spooky at the same time.

With many Victorian homes near it having been turned into multiple family homes this one stands proudly as a vacant giant built for one family but inhabited by no one.

If you don't have plans on this lovely crisp evening, I would highly suggest you drive by this interesting home. See if you get a shiver down your spine.

Ever been? Know the house? Have any ghost stories to share about it? Comment in the conversation below and check back for updates as I report more about the house and its history.

Happy Halloween!

What is RSS?

2008-10-25T00:52:44Z

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It has had several other names over the years, but that is the current one.

RSS attempts to solve a problem that people have when using the Internet; they are overwhelmed with information. In the age of the Internet you can now read all your favorite newspapers and blogs and do so all while never leaving your computer.

The problem is, how do you keep track of the newest information on all these websites without being completely inundated, or having to spend hours combing through these sites? This is where RSS comes in handy.

So what is RSS exactly? Wikipedia defines RSS as follows:

"RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works – such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video – in a standardized format"

The first thing that you have to do is get something to read RSS. We here at the Sacramento Press tend to use Google Reader. This will be a home for all of your RSS feeds.

On many sites including this one you will see an RSS icon. Generally this is a small orange icon, like one of the two pictured in the image gallery above.

These icons are simply links to unstyled versions of the content on a website. And the way you use them is copy the link from these RSS buttons into your RSS reader, such as Google Reader.

Because I think this is more easily demonstrated than explained, I have linked to a video of a really great explanation of RSS.

Did you watch the video? If not I would really recommend it. After watching the video go ahead and try it for yourself. Grab Google Reader and subscribe to the RSS feed for this storyline. Can you find the RSS button? It's right under the title of this article.

Still don't quite get it? Comment in the conversation below and I'll answer all your questions and concerns.

Our coverage plan

2008-10-15T17:33:11Z

Our long term goal is to cover all of the Sacramento Metropolitan Area, however that will take time. Some users have already noticed that we have given a huge bit of attention to the Southside Park neighborhood of downtown. This is because the Southside Park neighborhood is in our "beta" area.

For a more detailed description of what beta means and the what area of town we are starting out in please visit the article What is "beta"? in our Frequently Asked Questions storyline.

As we expand and grow we will quickly move beyond just trying to cover this neighborhood in downtown and begin covering a larger and larger area. When we do we will also change our navigation to reflect our growth and won't give top billing to just one neighborhood.

If you still have any questions our comments about our strategy please feel free to comment in the conversation below or email us at feedback@sacramentopress.com.

Sacramento Press launches beta product!

2008-10-14T11:26:50Z

The Sacramento Press has been a long time in the making. We first formed our little company way back in 2005, what seems like an eternity ago. Back then we noticed that our media was delivering fewer and fewer local stories and we began to think of how to remedy the problem. Now, three years later, that idea stands before you today as the Sacramento Press.

With the help and serious hard work of many people we've finally gotten to the point where we can show Sacramento what we are working on. For those that have worked here, hard work barely does the effort justice. In the last 6 weeks most of us have had more sleepless nights than restful ones, but we persevered.

The Sacramento Press will be the best source of news and information in the Sacramento Metropolitan Area and it will accomplish that feat with the help of a whole lot of Sacramentans. But the Sacramentans that will make this possible will not be an elite staff of journalists, rather everyday people, reporting what they see and aspiring to the highest standards of journalistic excellence.

The Sacramento Press will provide all the tools necessary for an average citizen to report the news and to do so in a fashion that is compelling to all of Sacramento. By focusing on small local issues we aim to cover what matters most to people, what happens where they live.

By drawing on a base of the entire Sacramento community we will fill in coverage gaps that larger media companies struggle to cover. Instead of cutting back on local coverage we will expand it to cover every nook and cranny of our fair city.

We think it's a bright future. And one in which we encourage anyone and everyone to take part. So sign up, log in, and start writing today!

What is "Beta"?

2008-10-14T08:56:58Z

"Beta" is a little bit of shop talk I guess. In our case it refers to the release state of our web software application. We built our online newspaper platform from scratch. Beta just means that our initial release has not been tested enough to be considered 100% robust and sturdy.

We will be "beta testing" our application by launching it in a specific neighborhood. We call that neighborhood our "beta" area because, like the application, we are just testing our processes in preparation for a full launch.

Our "beta" neighborhood is the quadrant of downtown between the Sacramento river, Capitol City Freeway, 16th Street, and N street. This area includes the neighborhood of Southside Park, part of Richmond Grove, and part of the R street corridor.

As a user, and especially as a writer, you may experience technical problems or poor site design. We need you to help us by giving us constructive suggestions to make your experience better. We are flexible and we know that there will be some issues. Please help us make The Sacramento Press the very best site for local news and information.

How do I become a writer?

2008-10-14T08:52:17Z

Its easier than you think. If you want to be a writer, sign up or log in and click the "write!" button on the top of the page. Now you can sign up to become a Community Contributor.

Our journalism support department offers a manual, seminars, and workshops on becoming a better writer and journalist. The more workshops you attend the better your credibility with us and the more likely our editing staff will place your work on the front page. For more information contact journalism@sacramentopress.com.

Please pay close attention to our ethical code and disclose your biases. Our watchword is transparency because it helps us balance the news we report on the front page.

Start by covering one story. Just think of an itch that you need to scratch on a topic you know really well. A lot of you may know about the music scene, and a lot of you can write great reviews of local restaurants. But if you want to get on our front page, you are better off focusing on a story that really isn't being told elsewhere in the local media. The triumphs of your softball team or that mysterious vacant mansion down the street might be great stories. Write what you know and become an expert on your neighborhood in the process.

Pay attention to the conversations going on in your storyline. Use your audience to guide your next article and ask them questions when you don't know the answer. Trust that they are just like you and want to build a better neighborhood.

Finally, we want to support you in every way possible. We will help set up peer editing groups if you want the perspectives of other Community Contributors before publishing a headline. We have a network of resource providers in city government and private institutions who can help you find the answers to some of your tougher questions. In some cases we can even get you a press pass to an event.

Take the plunge. Click the "write!" button, become a Community Contributor, and cover a story with us.

What kind of gatekeeping do we do?

2008-10-14T08:36:54Z

We do not prohibit content based on its viewpoint. We do however select stories that will go on our front page and our section pages. That editorial decision is primarily based on the quality of the content written. We also rely on the community to help label offensive content, spam and redundant content. When identified, said content will be removed by staff at the Sacramento Press.

Do we fact check?

2008-10-14T08:26:01Z

At this time we do not fact check all of our community contributors' content. We will fact check what is written in house by our editors and interns and We do provide resources to our Community Contributors to allow for them to find the most factually correct information available. Should a reader find that a fact is incorrect we have the ability to take down the offending content or issue a retraction.

Can I write whatever I want?

2008-10-14T07:55:28Z

Yes and no. You have the ability on our site to post anything to the site without it being reviewed. If you violate our terms of use, your content will be removed. If you continually violate or terms of use your account will be suspended. If you write content that is not in line with the mission statement of The Sacramento Press, "To be the most comprehensive source of local news and information in the Sacramento area," your content will never be featured and will dwell in the bowels of our site. For instance we do not want people's thoughts on life. A life diary is better suited to a blogging site like Blogspot or Blogger.

Additionally we do not want people writing about national or state issues. There are many outlets for that news and we are not one of them. The theory behind our paper is that Sacramentans are often experts about local topics that they deal with on a daily basis. So, please be from the Sacramento area if you plan on writing for our paper. Our focus is on local news. Write local, and write what you know. One exception to this is creative content. While we still want you to be local to the Sacramento Metropolitan Area we will definitely try and feature some creative content. It used to be a newspaper staple to feature serialized creative content and we would love to revive that tradition.

How do we make money?

2008-10-14T07:51:33Z

We sell advertising. However, you will not see any pop up ads or ugly flyovers on our site. And you won't see lists and lists of button adds or text adds crammed on the sides and bottoms of our pages. All of us at the Sacramento Press use our own site and rule number one is if it looks bad to us then it will look bad to you.

Our advertising is based not on the number of eyeballs we can distract or the number of clicks we can generate. It is based on the privilege of sponsoring the best stories and conversations about Sacramento. Our advertisers want to be associated with you, not distract you!

We respect that our advertisers keep us in business and sponsor your great writing. So we do not try to hide their ads away. We are working to create a balance that is respectful of our readers and our advertisers.

We built our advertising management site from scratch and we are very proud of it. We give advertisers the ability to target their ads to the right content and even avoid content which might not be in line with their values. It is our ultimate goal for our partners to sponsor the stories and conversations that match their values and their unique commitments to our community.

We also enroll each partner in our Do The Right Thing Program (DRTP). Five percent of our revenue from their advertisements goes to a local charity of their choice. And we try to link advertisers with the right charities and encourage them to give on their own. Our community is an ecosystem of business, government, non-profits, and individuals. We aim to serve each component of our community and bind us all together. We achieve this not only through our media outlet, but also our business practices.

Please tell these local partners that you appreciate their sponsorship of these important stories. Forget about clicking the link, walk down and thank them in person.

Storylines sound like a fancy name for blogs. What is the difference?

2008-10-14T07:29:22Z

There are three main differences. The first is not technical. Right now storylines are usually written by one author. He/she is the author for each article in the storyline just like most blogs. However, we ask each author to tell just one story over time rather than posting all sorts of interesting tidbits. While blogs can go all over the place, we ask our writers to stick to one story and cover it well.

The second difference is technical. Our storylines are dynamic. Editors can combine any series of articles into a storyline. This kind of editorial control is really great. And because we built our system with this kind of flexibility in mind from the start, we have an amazing content manegement system.

Third, intent is very important. Our intent is to enable the best stories and the the best conversations. We work very hard to elevate both along side each other. We believe that each are equally important. We use many tools that blogging platforms use. We use many tools that great forums use. We have created an outstanding layout system so that editors can make the whole site look just like a newspaper. We are using the very best tools from all over the web to build the very best site for Sacramento. While the tools bear some resemblance, the most important difference is that in the right hands and with the right intent, these tools become great concepts for enabling people to tell stories and have conversations about important local issues that are not being covered by the local media.

What is a storyline?

2008-10-14T07:08:54Z

Ben, the cofounder of the Sacramento Press gets asked this question about 20 times a day, so below is the answer that he gave for this question:

Let me start with a different question: what is an article? In printed newspapers articles are the basic unit of content, it is how a newspaper tells a story. An article can only be a certain length because there is only so much room on the page. And if a writer wants to post a history of the topic covered, link to older news items, or follow up the progress of the story? Well, tough luck. Traditional papers are constrained by space and time and try to tell the whole story in any given article. So if you want to start an online newspaper, you could start with that same basic unit, the article.

But when we first designed The Sacramento Press, Geoff and I wanted to start from scratch. We wanted to enable writers to tell stories without the constraints of space or time. We wanted to establish a conversation with readers. So we came up with a new basic unit, the storyline.

We ask our writers to cover a topic and follow the progress of the story. We ask writers to find the history of the story, and cover developments over time. Each post can be treated like a separate article, but if you click the green "storyline " button on the right you will see other parts of the story like histories and updates. Now you can more easily get the whole story over time and drill down to greater depth about a topic.

We also took a different approach with comments. Geoff and I noticed that comments on small blog sites tended to be more civil than on large sites like newspapers. We believe that writers must be active and responsive to the conversation about their story. If comments are disconnected then people have little incentive to be civil, but if the comments represent a true conversation with a writer, the the quality of the comments improve. Better yet, the audience for local stories often knows more collectively than the writer. Our contributors want to learn from you and let the audience guide their next article. People love to tell stories and we love to have conversations. Commenting is a way of joining these great conversations and when writers are responsive and inclusive, the conversation will drive better and better reporting.

We wanted our initial product to look a lot like a traditional newspaper to the casual reader, so we scaled back on some of our more fanciful ideas about how storylines might look and act, but by clicking on the green "storyline" button you will get a peek at the power of thinking outside the box and creating a new basic unit of content for The Sacramento Press.

So that's it! On to another question and remember you can always comment below and continue the conversation if you still don't quite get what a storyline is.

Our role and the rule of law

2008-10-14T04:48:10Z

A traditional newspaper is a one way street. They write, you read. This policy has worked out pretty well since the first American newspaper was published in 1690. The publishers of newspapers were the primary gatekeepers of daily news and information. They chose what content you saw, and what content you didn't, but they also made pledges to fact check their content and be held accountable for what they wrote. Thus reporting was something for the professionals and best left at that.

Then in the early 1990's the world became acquainted with the World Wide Web, and the Internet caught the world's attention. The Internet was and remains the land of the amateur, the place where anything is possible. Soon anyone with access to a computer could have a voice that the whole world could hear. With this near complete freedom eventually came a slew of difficulties. With no gatekeepers the world of information available online often turned to noise.

Our goal is to highlight and promote the best content among a sea of voices. Anyone can write for our website. There are no interviews, no employment forms and job postings; you simply sign up and start writing. Anything you write will be available on our site forever. However we will choose to highlight certain headlines and comments by featuring them on our front page and our section pages. Our choices will be primarily based on the quality of the writing. Also, the content must not violate our terms of use, which excludes profane and nude content. And while generally the partisan politics of potholes is minimal, it is our goal to feature both sides of any local controversial issues equally. Our goal is not to be fair and balanced by giving you just our view, but to make sure all the voices on an issue are heard. If graffiti is an issue in a particular neighborhood we want to feature stories from all points of view on the issue, from the graffiti artists, from the police, from the people that live in the neighborhood and anyone with a hands on perspective of the issue. Our editorial perspective is about building and identifying real world communities in the Sacramento region and not taking a stance on any one particular issue.