Congratulations to Barrington for becoming the first town in Rhode Island to ban plastic grocery bags, and here’s hoping many more municipalities follow suit; such restrictions serve as a great aid in cleaning up Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island’s greatest natural asset.
Speaking of firsts, the first offshore wind farm in the United States, which should generate enough electricity to power almost 20,000 homes, could be built off Block Island by 2014, says the Providence Journal. If you’re worried about the five, 600-foot-tall turbines effect on the environment, this is what the ProJo says the project will do to keep things cozy for wildlife:
“During construction, Deepwater would use a spotter boat and would suspend work if [endangered North American right] whales get too close. The company would do above-water pile driving to reduce underwater noise when the turbines’ foundations are being anchored to the ocean bottom.”
There could be another civil liberties controversy brewing in Cranston, as Senate candidate Sean Gately is now making an issue out of the school department’s decision not to let the Cub Scouts recruit new members on school property.
Better late than never, the ProJo editorial team runs a post mortem on the 38 Studios debacle, laying the most blame on Don Carcieri and the least on Linc Chafee … meanwhile Curt Schilling will get the worst of it tonight on ESPN as he’ll be featured in a documentary about athlete’s who go broke.
The biggest chain of weekly newspapers in Rhode Island has a new publisher and she is doing something a journalist should never do, namely saying things that are patently untrue: “Our position in our markets is definitely positive as we continue to be the dominant news source for our communities,” Jody Boucher told Ted Nesi in an email. No they aren’t. In fact in almost every community Southern Rhode Island Newspapers has weekly papers in, their properties are a distant second to Patch sites.
Speaking of which, Patch is taking on the Valley Breeze now, too.
Today in 1800, Nat Turner, one of America’s greatest revolutionaries, is born.
The Patch “expansion” is adding Smithfield to Johnston editor Joe Hutnak’s portfolio…after he and other Patch editors have had their freelance budgets slashed. Wonder if that’s how they do it for the other towns they’re supposedly entering.
Those folks are tasting the same pain people at weekly newspapers are, albeit it for somewhat higher salaries.
Shocking that a guy with such links to Patch and My02818.com would be the only person left who still thinks that Patch sites do anything but report on such hard-hitting news topics as “The Pet of the Week” and “5 ways to keep your marriage healthy in and out of the bedroom.”
Oh and there’s always the “5 things to do today!” which is, in essence, a repackaging of the host site’s calendar.
But hey, Bob, keep up the good work.
Just do me a favor and stop comparing Patch to any news outlet. At all. To say that those sites are even remotely close to journalism is an insult to anyone who has ever done anything in the field.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m pretty sure there’s a squirrel outside. I’m going to go see if it wants to “blog” on my local Patch site.
That sure would be nuts!
#Hack