As we here at the Elk Grove Citizen move forward in the world of online journalism, there will undoubtedly be glitches, gaffes, and mess-ups. We will do our best to avoid them, limit them, and correct ourselves when we do make an error or something goes wrong.
Afterall, blogging and the other forms of online publishing are developing and changing at a rapid pace and we here at the Citizen are trying to not only do our daily jobs at the newspaper but also learn how to manage and utilize these new technologies. There are bound to be some bumps on the digital highway.
Today, I got onto the egcitizennews blog site and found the same obituary placed in three different locations on the Web page. I had added Mr. Wettach's obituary last night and had experienced a few "error" messages while adding that text. I thought I had fixed the problem and when I viewed the page before posting it, it looked normal.
Then came this afternoon - and Mr. Wettach's obituary was on there in three places.
So, I fiddled with the template and layout on blogger.com and quickly corrected the problem. It took a bit of time and reading, but it got done.
For me, a total Luddite, it was a frustrating situation. I am a rookie with computers - having just bought my first computer ever in February. That was at the age of 37. Yes, have never owned a computer - amazing in this day and age of technology.
Not owning a computer all these years means that I have extremely little know-how on how to use computers (aside from turning it on and off, some word processing, and a few other tasks) let alone program the html code on a blog.
So, it is a learn as I go process. I am trying to teach myself basic blogging and Web site development via books and Web tutorials, but it is slow going with my duties to the print edition, managing our small newsroom, and living a personal life outside of work.
The experience raised my respect and appreciation for the work that amateur bloggers like Jason Daniel of Eyes of Argus (www.eyesofargus.net) produce.
We have a new summer intern - Sarah Kyo - who has studied blogging and vlogging ( video blogging) at San Jose State University. Kyo - who is majoring in journalism - will be at the Citizen until early August and is interested in maintaining a blog while here on staff. We will update our readers when that happens and link to her blog from this one as well as our main Web site - www.egcitizen.com.
I hope you enjoy our blog and keep returning as we add new features and more stories and breaking news. We hope to have audio and video podcasts available within the next few months.
Jeff Forward
Editor, the Citizen
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