Hello from the Pacific Northwest

Posted by aperdue on December 10, 2006 at 5:57pm

I'm Andy Perdue from the Tri-City Herald in Washington state, USA. I'm the interactive media director here. We're part of McClatchy, and Drupal is a big part of our current and future strategy. I currently run four Drupal-powered sites, three for the newspaper and one for a nonprofit group with which I'm affiliated.

One of our more interesting projects is TriCityForum.com, a free-flowing, Drupal-powered forum that coincides with our Saturday editorial page (which has the same name). The page pushes people to the Web site, and the Web site drives content for the page.

I come from the newsroom side; I'm a third-generation newsman with 21 years in the biz, primarily in the Pacific Northwest. I'm not a tech guy, though I've designed and implemented newsroom pagination systems, which got me involved in the interactive side. I see wonderful opportunities with Drupal and am thrilled this group has been formed.

Comments

Ahhh

Posted by agentrickard on December 11, 2006 at 3:39pm

We have some wonderful collaboration conflicts ahead ;-)

For everyone else, McClatchy owns http://islandpacket.com/ (Hilton Head, SC, USA). And Morris owns http://blufftontoday.com (Bluffton, SC, USA). The two are in-market competitors (and both use Drupal).

All politics aside, we should have a chat about the claim that "Drupal is a big part of our current and future strategy."

--
http://ken.therickards.com/

Glad to chat

Posted by aperdue on December 11, 2006 at 9:06pm

Drop me a note through the contact form. Would be glad to talk about our ideas.

As far as politics go, McClatchy papers are quite independent in they way they're run, so the only thing I know about what is happening in the Carolinas is what I read online. I'm 3,000 miles away, so I'll have no secrets to share (and probably no one to share others' with). ;-)

Fresno Famous

Posted by agentrickard on December 20, 2006 at 3:18pm

I just read about the McClatchy purchase of Fresno Famous, a local Drupal-powered site.

http://www.fresnofamous.com/

California-based citizen journalism site Fresno Famous was purchased yesterday by the Fresno Bee -- one of the crown jewels in the historic McClatchy newspaper chain.

Fresno Famous was founded in 2004 by 26-year-old Jarah Euston. The site is a community portal, with blogs, podcasts, Flickr photo galleries, and forums.

The Bee will own Fresno Famous, but the new acquisition be managed separately from the newspaper. Said Euston in the official announcement, "Fresno Famous will remain separate from The Fresno Bee newspaper, but will gain the resources of a much larger media company. We owe our success to the community of users on the site, and know this sale will only improve user experience," said Euston.

Source : Poynter online.