Around this town - October 2012

 The Big Man Bob Cox has put figurative pen to paper in a recent blog post on the Free Press web site. He doesn't write half bad (aside from the one sentence per paragraph thing -- did somebody draw a period on the enter key of his key board?) Maybe he can pick up some of the slack from the laid off journalists and put out some concert reviews and web content.

Half a million Winnipeggers read newspapers

Half a million people read newspapers regularly in Winnipeg.Two out of every three Winnipeggers read the Winnipeg Free Press at least once a week.
...
The real numbers, complete with full-colour graphs, are in a survey made public this week by the National Audience Databank better known as NADbank. When you consider all newspapers, four out of five Canadians read a newspaper at least once a week either in print or online. In Winnipeg, 78 per cent read a printed paper weekly, making us the most prolific newspaper readers in the country.

"Dang .. if only we had known that before we laid off all those people. Oh well ... what's done is done..."

So what's up? Is the Free Press okay or not? Go to the quarterly report and scroll down to page 5 and look at the revenues. Add up 2010 and 2011. Revenues actually increased year over year! But .. look at the first two quarters of 2012 -- not so rosy. What's changed? The Metro. That's my bet. The humble little free daily paper has put a big bite in the Free Press ad revenue.

So what does this have to do with the"alt weekly" Uptown magazine getting axed and replaced by an existing paper insert? That, I'm not entirely sure. However, say goodbye to local content and hello to CD reviews from the Associated Press and entertainment pieces yanked from Slate.com.

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Prior to the last provincial election I followed most of the major candidates on Twitter and regretted it immediately. If it wasn't required for my lucrative career as a blogger I would have instantly unfollowed them.

"Great day of campaigning in St.Boniface. #GoJetsGo"
"I'm in the front row of the Ukrainian pavilion at Folklorama! Mmmmm perogies!"
"I'm at the fall supper in Glenboro. Boy are the perogies ever good!"

Oh God, shoot me before I read any more of this drivel.

Remarkably I neglected to unfollow them after the election, probably because most of them stopped tweeting. However I need to give a shout out to Hugh McFadyen who, now that he's no longer a politician, re-emerged in the Twitterverse in August with a photo of Ron Swanson as his avatar and some actual substance in his tweets..

He's since ditched the Swanson picture, but might be worth a follow if you don't already.

Here's the thing though: why not actually share your thoughts on social media when you're a politician??  Yes, there is some risk, but I would argue that the bigger risk is leaving voters detached and bored. Put it out there. Give people a reason to relate to you or at least see that you're human!

Just watch the swearing...

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We have a few returning Winnipeg-related blogs and/or bloggers.

David Jacks has revived what used to be the Banana Peel as the new Jacks of Diamonds. He's only a couple posts into the new project so we'll keep on eye on this one and see how it goes.

Arthur Mira (@H0PP on the twitter) has returned with the WpgNewsReview, minimalist in design but not in length of post. If I have a word of advice for Arthur it's to cut those posts down a wee bit. Trust me. A picture or two helps also.

Shaun Wheeler has recently returned from a three month self-imposed exile from the internet and produced a five-part blog super-post for blog action day (start with part 1 here). This seems to me a little like trying to bench press 200 lbs after not going to the gym all summer, but good on him for doing it.

I just couldn't get into blog action day this year. Theme: "The Power of We." What the hell? "We"??? We WHAT? Great, ya, we can get more stuff done if we work together, but I need more of a framework in my subject matter. Something with a little less holistic nebulosity. Something like: Blog Action Day: how to make a good omelette.
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Finally, there is a new upstart Winnipeg internet forum out there: the uniquely name Winnipeg Forums.com. With only 8 total members they have a ways to go, but everybody has to start somewhere, right? Winnipeg Zoom is doing well as it approaches it's 1 year anniversary (and the Sandbox ... well ... it's still out there too.)

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Ah heck, one last thing: Binders Full Of Women.

Oh Mitt ...