Online Newspaper

For years, I have lamented, to anyone who would listen, the lack of an online local news source that truly CARED about the people, the events, and the happenings of Athens and Limestone County.

I'd love to operate an online alternative to the newspaper that had fresh headlines as they happened, police blotter reports right from the scanner and sections for everything from the school board meetings to Miz Jones garden.

We lack a total approach to our local high school sports in the local paper. It's as if only SOME schools deserve coverage. On the internet, you could tab EVERY school and have information about all activities so that the kids could see themselves as the newsmakers they truly are. Elementary School plays, beauty walks and all sorts of community events down to the latest chicken and goat stew event to benefit one of the volunteer fire departments would ALL get the coverage they deserve.

In the age of digital media, the local newspaper is a good thing to a point - but without a viable internet portal that dishes headline news like a viral video source, we miss so much.

I wish I had the money to have a small television, radio and internet portal that offered streaming content online that was up to the minute about everything from prices on fresh tomatoes at the Farmer's Market (which in Alabama are STILL safe to eat!) to what the Senior Center is offering for lunch today.

We need to get to know our neighbors and become a community again. What better way than a totally mobile traveling news van that could put everything online within minutes!

Every Sunday could feature a different church service and afternoon presentations of local productions and events that just made people feel good about living in this particular corner of
Eden.

During the week, features on our neighbors and the local customs and colors that make our community worth living in would fill the day. And, just to keep them honest, we would interview local government officials and remind them that what they say would be printed IN FULL on the website along with the video of the interview.

Features on the Juvenile and Adult Justice System could tell about how our community is dealing with those who haven't become model citizens yet. We could explain what truly happens to those who run afoul of the law. There would even be video of the jail and the food that it served. While it's nutritious, I have heard it's pretty bad tasting. That might discourage some miscreants right then and there!

There are so many 'little' events that never get noticed. Yard sales are the American family's way of keeping up with a sagging economy. Imagine the traffic to their sale if only people could SEE what was being offered for sale! We could ask important questions like "Is this the first yard sale you have had this season?" or "What do you plan to do with the money you make from this sale"?

We could feature birthdays, anniversaries and all sorts of family events of the normal everyday family that aren't part of the big name social scene. It may not be front page news for the print media, but to the lives of the average family, it is not only front page worthy, but deserves a banner headline.

While the passage of the day to day doesn't garner much press in real time, it is those everyday happenings that truly define who we are as individuals and community.

Just sitting here, I can think of SO many ways to make the events of our hometown come to life like never before. We host bike races, competitive runs and a kiddie carnival. They might get a mention in the Sunday paper a couple of weeks after the event occurs.

But what might happen if we could do live streaming and post video that day of something that occured in our hometown?

Like the old song says "Accentuate the Positive".

And by choosing the immediacy of the internet to do just that, we might just very well eliminate the negative or at least, substantially reduce it. People would rather get good attention anyway. It's much more long lasting and keeps their countenance smiling.

If I could figure out a way to do this (and come up with the money to do it), I might just create an alternative to the print media that leaves out so much and a gateway to offer a view into our lives that we seldom even know is available.