Franktown Cafe

Word comes from the Carson paper that a Home Depot is planned for north Carson next to the new Wal-Mart on College Parkway. It is planned to open in early 2008. Apparently I have been such a good customer they have decided to locate a store closer to my wallet. Carson City really is going bonkers as far as development and the sleepy little town is going away. Unless… with the freeway bypass the downtown in a twist of irony will successfully evolve (devolve) into the quieter, slower main street of yesteryear. Lets hope the city pulls it off.

CBS Evening News tonight had a segment on the sad state of printed newspapers. Readership is down 18% and falling. Not just because fewer people actually read, I think, but because the internet is duplicating the service in a “sexier” way. I bought a $5.00 New York Times Sunday Edition over the weekend though and it sure smelled good when I opened it. Something about newsprint. It will take me a week to read it and as and extra bonus I can have something to talk to about with my father-in-law who does the same thing. A daily newspaper is just too much in todays busy world.

Back to the decline of newspapers, though. I logged on to Tahoe.com after an absence of a couple of months. Tahoe.com was the presence for several local papers owned by the same corporation. The Truckee, Tahoe City, Incline Village, South Lake Tahoe and Carson City papers were all listed in the left margin with links. No more. Tahoe.com is now, it seems, strictly a tourist and advertising site. I logged on to Tahoeworld.com the site for The Tahoe City World, a newspaper that has been around for years, and found that it, too, is now just an entertainment rag for tourists and hip locals. The Sierra Sun, the Truckee paper, has become something in-between. Over at RGJ.com, the site for our local Reno Gazette-Journal, similar changes have been taking place. They are encouraging more user involvement and focus on local neighborhoods to increase “relevance” with the local audience with both the print version and their website.

When I started washoevalley.org a year ago, it was not part of a trend in my mind. I just felt we were an isolated, unique area with distinct issues with a need for local communication. Over the last year, though, I have found we are part of an information revolution. Community Journalism, as some call it, is a growing trend. People get their major news from the TV news networks or from the web. There is only need for local ads, happenings and issues. Many of these things vary on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis. So, the trend is to specialize local media into smaller audiences. Local community websites have sprung up all over the country in response and now media giants like RGJ are getting into the act.

So you and I are part of a new trend, whether we recognize it or not, that may be sweeping one of the, if not biggest, but one of the most influencial areas of our lives. It will be interesting to see what, if any, impact washoevalley.org has in the shaping of Washoe Valley’s future.