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-----------> This message was posted to the ONLINE-NEWS list. <-----------

>My thinking is that a web site with city council agendas, proposed
>ordinances, contact information etc. is the modern day equivalent of the
>legal notices that are still a source of income for many small papers. 

I think this is a great idea in principle. We're always trying to make more
local information available. 
But my real concern is the always-underestimated workload associated with
building and (more importantly) maintaining web pages. I'm reluctant to
trust web novices who want to catch the wave (or who genuinely want to
share information as widely as possible) but have little experience and
unreasonable expectations about how to make it happen.
Besides avoiding the potential conflict-of-interest perception, I'd be
worried about adopting pages which may not be properly updated and which
reflect badly on the site itself.
Casual visitors to a site may have difficulty distinguishing original
editorial content from city/town postings which could end up being
outdated, unedited, etc. and blame us for errors that are beyond our control.
How do we make the information available while keeping the distinction
explicit?
Lou


********************************
Lou Cove    
Producer
MassLive
136 West Street
Northampton, MA 01060
Ph.413-584-3521

http://www.masslive.com
Online for Western Massachusetts
********************************



At 09:43 PM 7/20/98 -0700, you wrote:
>-----------> This message was posted to the ONLINE-NEWS list. <-----------
>
>
>My thinking is that a web site with city council agendas, proposed
>ordinances, contact information etc. is the modern day equivalent of the
>legal notices that are still a source of income for many small papers.  Are
>there very many papers that have taken on the task of hosting or
>maintaining official city sites?  How are these site segregated from
>editorial or advertising content?  Or are they? 
>
>Any thoughts or insights appreciated . . . 
>==========
>Bart Preecs
>bpreecs@accessone.com
>


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