Out of the Inkwell

Well, the cooperative blogging effort of which I'm proudly a part received a nice piece in the Valley Advocate this week. Go read it and come back.

The goal of Pioneer Valley Central is to try to create a blogging center for local voices that will hopefully make us a little money in the future. Like any publishing effort all of us expect it to take time and to be the subject of constant adjustments.

I'm concerned the Web will devolve into yet another corporate controlled medium. Corporate ownership of television, radio and newspapers has literally sucked the life out of local news and commentary and frankly I can't imagine why the Web won't eventually become the same. Anyone who believes the inherent democratic nature of the Web won't be the subject of corruption and control isn't much of a student of media history – especially of the last 40 years.

In my mind the only way to help prevent that is to build sites that foster local issues. I do some of that here, but more is done over at Pioneer Valley Central.

If you're blogging in the Pioneer Valley and would like more info on how to become part of the group, drop me a line at mdobbs at crocker.com.