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Mission Viejo NewsBlog Staff What’s happening to local news coverage? Fledgling newspapers and TV stations in Orange County have come and gone. Saddleback Valley News has been publishing a smaller, regionalized version with pictures and letters reprinted from The Register. Is local news a thing of the past? When former SVN editor Warren Esterline retired earlier this year, residents didn’t expect SVN’s city coverage would decline. Esterline is a longtime Mission Viejo resident, whereas reporters who cover our city don’t live here. Except for Marilyn Grein’s Business Watch column, the paper’s local flavor has waned. Over the years, SVN provided a valuable forum to air issues through letters to the editor. Whether the new editor, Marie Padilla, objects to controversy or city politics is moot. Letters exposing city issues aren’t getting in. Community activists in the 1995-2005 anti-airport campaign benefited from new campaign weaponry afforded by the Internet. It’s no coincidence that Carl Schulthess, Mission Viejo city leader for Measure F & W, conceived of weekly news coverage in the form of the Mission Viejo NewsBlog. Maybe he’ll write about how NewsBlog came to him. With the ease of forwarding email, distribution possibilities become astronomical. Those contributing to Mission Viejo NewsBlog hope for such success. If you believe in the NewsBlog’s value, please pass it on. Please also consider sending a letter to the editor via the link provided. |
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