Former Deerfield Observer Editor David Volz, who has been kicking around these parts committing community newspaper journalism for 20 years, has started his own online publication.
Or is it a blog? Well, it's in blog form, but Volz says he's going to cover all the things that community newspapers do, from City Hall to little league baseball. And he's looking for advertisers and "sponsorships" in hopes of making money on the Coral Springs Connection one day.
"It's an online community newspaper, and it will never be an actual paper product," Volz told me today. "And I'm going to be covering the City Commission, high school football, churches, synagogues, the whole thing. I spent the whole weekend covering little league baseball. And that got a lot of hits."
Volz, who also teaches at Broward Community College and spent eight years covering community news for the Sun-Sentinel, isn't looking for controversy, just clicks. "I'm not going to get into partisan politics, and I'm going to be as impartial as any person can be. I'm not going to to try to be New Times. I'm not going to use obscenities."
All that NT does and our life's work gets boiled down to cuss words? Well, there are worse things. But Volz isn't the only one getting into this internets thing. [The following is an evolving list] Veteran journos Dan Christensen and Joe Demma are allegedly starting an online investigative publication called Broward Bulldog (which hasn't started yet). Former Miami New Times writer Kirk Nielsen has started his own interesting online blog-type thing, called Nielsen Readings, with some original reporting, much of it with a national and international flavor. John DeGroot has "According to DeGroot," which has been serving up some tasty factoids on State Attorney Michael Satz. There must be other little pubs out there begun by former S. Fla. journos -- if you have any post the link.
This is the future -- lots of unique journalistic upshoots sprouting in the marketplace. Some will thrive, some will die, some will toil away for years. And some day one might just become dominant.