Last week, the Press-Telegram entered a brave new world, embracing the internet age with their Press Corps blog page, which features four staff writers and their thoughts about the city.  Paul Eakins, Samantha Gonzaga, Kris Hanson and Karen Robes—all of which are relatively young, it’s worth noting—post content to the site that allows them to upload quick stories that may not be lengthy enough or worthy of mention in print, such as Hanson’s quick blurb about a port tour or Robes’ Queen Mary announcement.

The newspaper’s recent foibles have been well documented, but the Press Corps blog marks a new day at the P-T as they take steps to capitalize on the blog phenomenon.  (To be fair, some P-T sportswriters have been blogging for some time, but the impact of the Press Corps blog is far greater)

The Press Corps blog is a smart move by the P-T, a great way to add some personality to their website and let readers get to know the personal side of the people that cover their city.  The information of the future has just as much to do with the writer as the news, and adding a picture with a little bit of background info (ahem!) goes a long way towards making the reader familiar and comfortable.  

Yes, the city’s news has nothing to do with the fact that Paul Eakins is originally from Kansas (or that I am too, Rock Chalk!), but now there is a deeper connection to the writer and whatever stories of his/hers that you may read.  There is now a deeper understanding of where these words on a page are coming from—although there may be a bit of confusion as to whether that’s actually Kris Hanson or NBA guard Adam Morrison.

But that’s the thing about the Press Corps blog.  With the Press-Telegram slowly but surely outsourcing work and writers to the Torrance Daily Breeze, it’s refreshing to know that real, live people who live in Long Beach are covering the city, and are finding ways to reach readers in new and interactive ways.  The blog format invites participation in a way that the P-T website did not before.  So with this new tool, hopefully we will see a similarly new attitude in approaching city coverage.

By Ryan ZumMallen, Managing Editor