This city wants culture but it is too tribal to grow culturally. As soon as someone attempts to do something positive they get badmouthed and stabbed in the back unless of course you’ve created your own tribe. Then your own tribe will support you. I think of this as a tribe. I’m glad you guys have each other.

I’ve had it with Jacksonville. To tell you the truth I feel for you guys because this city will never improve. We’ll all be fifty years old before it’s anywhere close to what you guys are wanting it to be. There are smaller cities in poorer states that have much more culture, etc. I mean we can stick around till we’re fifty and then say finally they got it together, if it ever happens.

I tried for two years to help improve this art scene by documenting it and being at every show I could be at, and got nothing but heartache in return from the local art scene. I wish you all well. I’m sure someone will say something hurtful in response to this but I’m used to it by now.

Good luck Jacksonville.com. I really hope things go well for the paper as it would be a shame for all those employees to lose their jobs in this economy.

Great attempt Joey in outlining ways to improve the paper and help it stay afloat. Your passion for Jacksonville is inspiring and I wonder where all your energy comes from.

Also, Globatron has nothing to do with Jacksonville anymore. I’m sure a lot of you would be happy to know that. There’s a Dear John Letter I wrote below. Congratulations to everyone who talked enough shit about me to abandon my efforts. You should all give each other a high five.

http://www.globatron.org/globatron/dear-john-letter-to-jacksonville

Keep it up Joey.

Byron

ida know…seems like a lot o work.

The Times-Union could never compete with them on coverage of national, much less international topics. The fact that each of those 4 papers is doing a great job is an indication to me that the TU should let them do what they do best and focus on local regional as you say later on.

I do see what you are saying and you are making your point well. I agree when you say “As the newspaper of the region, it has a duty to keep the citizenry informed.” It is and it should.

I would much rather see a focus on regional, which you did not mention earlier, than national or international. Also, when I say more hyperlocal, I didn’t mean all hyperlocal, just to clarify.

@skink it depends on if the news story was something I was passionate about. Let’s say they were raising funds to form a transit beat that was a JTA watchdog. Would I contribute to that? Yes. I think it’s circumstantial. Is it the best model, maybe not, but it’s out of the box. That’s why I included it.

Why is that sad? So a story breaks we should wait until the next day when The Times has printed a story on it?

You may have missed my point, if I want late breaking national news I’m going online to a large national source, CNN, The Onion, etc… all of us are posting comments ONLINE. The future of news is ONLINE.