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Out of mud grows the lotus?
Well, this mud is deep!
of TheColumnists.com
A COUPLE years ago we started The Columnists.com with our money and our donated work. "We" are Ron Miller and Murry Frymer of the San Jose Mercury News, at first, and later joined by Gerald Nachman and John Stanley of the San Francisco Chronicle.
A couple years. Not so long. Right now, the New York Times is celebrating 150 years since its first edition. And there are papers that have been around longer.
TheColumnists.com has never made any money or paid anybody for an article. Its notoriety in this age of the Dot Com Disasters is that it is still publishing on the Internet whereas many of the like-minded web newspapers are gone.
When we started, the web seemed to offer great hope that it could create alternate sources for news, opinion and other writing. But the web still hasn't figured out how to make the idea profitable for the people publishing on its net. And we haven't either. The most successful web newspapers are Internet editions of newsprint newspapers and even they don't make any money but they promote the newsprint version which, for some papers, makes lots of money.
Ron Miller, former Television Editor of the Mercury News, has served as editor in chief of TheColumnists.com, more a title of heavy workload than authority. Ron puts the now-weekly product together from his digs in Blaine, Washington. He has increased the staff regularly, opening our pages to authors, sports columnists, novelists and others who had stories to tell and a winning way of telling them.
Our "staff" now includes a famed actress, a former cop, writers from the New York Post, Newsday, the Orange County Register, the Associated Press and, maybe by the time you read this, others. We started as a daily and never missed a deadline during our first year. We turned weekly for the second year and still haven't missed a deadline, except for the edition that featured the World Trade Center bombing. Unfortunately, Ron was in California at the time, unable to get a plane back home. But we followed with an evocative memorial edition.
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at our first year anniversary party, from left: Murry Frymer, Barbara Frymer, Darla Miller, Ron Miller, Gerald Nachman. |
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OK, what's the point? The
point is that the world of American journalism is pretty much
a closed scene, owned and operated by a handful of corporate
chain newspaper and media companies. Some are outstanding. We
mentioned the Times of New York. Some offer a good deal less.
But there are few parts of this country now where the news of
the day in print is not a monopoly situation. We offer alternate
voices. We are not rebels. We are seasoned prize-winning journalists
with stories and opinions to offer. And this appears to be the
most accessable forum to offer them.
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at our first year celebration, from left: Columnist Chuck McFadden, Columnist Elias Castillo, Cathy Castillo, Haruko Hummel, chief artist Jim Hummel, first webmaster Steve Gruber. Not Pictured: Alice Gruber, Columnist Karen Sharpe. |
Our circulation has grown to nearly 12,000 "page views" a month, which is a start. We offer little advertising. But we do offer writing that is not available anywhere else.
We think we are heading in the right direction and have no plans to desist. But we know that two years proves nothing and getting to 150 is going to take lots more "page views" and some enabling profit.
We'd like to hear from you as to whether we are on the right track. We'd like to hear from you about most anything. Mostly, we most want you to like to hear from us.
The New York Times prints
all the news that's fit to print. We print some of the news that
doesn't fit the Times. And we will continue.
©
2001 by Murry Frymer. The
Frymer caricature is © 2000 by Jim Hummel. The candid photos
were taken by our Paris-based columnist Karen Sharpe.
You
can comment on this column or contact Murry Frymer with an email
to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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