Welcome to Community Blogging!

As October draws to a close, our journalism class will now be switching gears from Urban Reporting, where the main focus of our reporting and writing was on Camden, New Jersey (an ideal Petri dish for understanding all that ails urban America) to individual communities. I guess you could say we are moving from “Urban Reporting” to “”Suburban Reporting” or “Community Reporting.” Either way, many of the same issues we looked at in covering Camden, also apply to outlying municipalities.

To get started, I am asking each student to create a blog about whichever community they choose to focus on — preferably one that you have a close connection to, such as your hometown, or an institution, club, organization or business that  you are a member of and feel comfortable writing about in blog format.

In addition to picking  your target community, I’d like you to select a catchy title, and to post an initial blog to get started. Also, you will be selecting a design format for your blog, choosing amongst those made available through WordPress. We will do this in class on Thursday. If you are familiar with some of the more advanced aspects of blogging, you are welcome to insert links, photos, and even include a personal avatar that will help identify your blog. While the focus of our class will still be largely centered on reporting and writing, as opposed to the art of blogging, by using this format to share your work I hope to expose you to a new (for some) form of communication. For some, I hope, it will open up an avenue that you may wish to keep up beyond this class. For your community, it may open up a new opportunity for others to join in the conversation and contribute news and opinions that are not currently being voiced in any public forum.

Good luck and I look forward to reading each of your posts.