Ukiah Daily Journal Goes Interactive

I guess interactive is the right word.

I was doing my daily check of the Ukiah Daily Journal web site and noticed they 'd started a blog. Kind of hard to notice, at first. I noticed a link for K.C.'s Blog in the left sidebar, went there, and noticed the September 20 entry where he mentioned they'd started a "community bulletin board".

Doesn't look like anybody's taken advantage of the bulletin board as of yet. Have to keep an eye on it and see if anything develops. I can't help but wonder how many people in Mendocino visit the UDJ web page and would even be aware of the bulletin board? Then again, seems like a number of us frequent the Times- Standard's web page.

Moving even further into interactivity, I noticed mention that the UDJ has set up their online stories to accept comments, joining the evergrowing number of newspapers that are doing so. This is another one that might be slow to get going as the link for comments is quite a ways down towards the bottom of the page so not easily noticed.

My comments might be the first up there, so far, as I didn't notice any others. I first took the opportunity to ask a question brought up on Eric's blog regarding the death of D.A. Norm Vroman: How will this affect the D.A. race down there? Does Vroman's opponent win by default?

Scroll down and you'll see my comment. I have to wonder if any staff members monitor the comments? I'll have to remember to check back and see if my question is answered.

I also had to make a somewhat light hearted comment in regards to this story on the Ukiah Police Department using T.V. ads for recruiting. My comment being that "We have the potential to hit a lot of people" is probably a poor choice of words for a police officer trying to promote his department.

I wonder if the Times- Standard will follow suit and allow comments to their online stories? They're owned by the same company and seem to use the same webmaster. I checked earlier on and don't see any comments links yet.

I suppose- some of their staff having visited the local blogs- I wouldn't blame them if they didn't. They might want the headache of dealing with some of the outlandish comments we see here.