New Yorker readers probably laughed at this last week (though not online — sorry, cartoons not searchable/linkable).

But replace the TV screen with a browser, and it’s not funny, it’s just a description of what people are doing every day with blogs and citizen journalism…. It could be happening in:

• Albuquerque, NM
• Bakersfield, Northwest (!)
• Boise, ID
• Cincinnati, OH
• Everett, MA
• Greensboro, NC
• Half Moon Bay, CA
• Miami, FL
• Nashville, TN
• Pratt, KS
• Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, New York City, NY
• Roswell, GA
• Winooski, VT

And it will get more and more local, as well as more and more widespread:

• Anguilla
• Gibraltar
• Vancouver

Local news from local people is more credible. Even if your neighborhood blogger can be dull, rides a hobby horse, and has objectionable political views, she doesn’t have to answer to advertisers (Google doesn’t call her up if they don’t like what she writes) she knows your community, and she calls it like she sees it.

Are we laughing at the couple in the cartoon, or at the TV station they’re watching, or at the cartoonist and the New Yorker editorial staff?

Posted by Antony in: Blogs, General