People dropped by our office in Tallahassee in recent weeks to pry information out of us about Sunshine State News. Visits by curious and nervous competitors in the media have been particularly frequent.
Who, they've been asking, is Sunshine State News? What are we going to be doing? How many people will be working for us? Is our orientation conservative?
Sunshine State News is a new model for journalism in Florida. We are all about challenging the established media approach to doing things. We think there's another way, one that's fresh and true to the bigger picture of what's fair and balanced.
We aim, for instance, to plant ourselves at the intersection of business, government and politics each day. From this vantage point, we plan to provide our audiences with useful and fresh information that deepens understanding. If we do our jobs well, you're going to discover valuable insights here that you will find no place else.
We will be offering thoughtful, inside coverage of topics intelligent political and business leaders care about.
We're betting all audiences, especially those in business and politics, will immediately see the value in a news organization challenging the status quo and focusing on what may be described as the business of politics and the politics of business.
We will turn to you to help keep us on inside track. And we will make it as easy as possible to help us load our Web site with the right ideas and insights, conversations, photographs and videos hour by hour, day by day.
Much current reporting seems to start with the assumption that the relationship between business and politics is somehow suspect.We see the marriage of business and politics in American life as one of the most stable unions around, worthy of fair and balanced reporting. What interests us more is what policies result. Are they effective? Poorly conceived? Who benefits? What do they costand who pays? Howare we all affected?
There is no better place to engage in this sort of news gathering than here, online. Not only can we cover the news and deliver it to you with greater speed, we can respond with immediacy to features you want and do not want and adjust what we do with the click of a button.
It is a dynamic and fluid time for journalism. And, judging by the growing number of news groups migrating to the Web, the entrepreneurial sprit of journalism is alive and well. And this is a good thing. Competition means choices.
Far from killing journalism, the Internet and online news organizations promise to create a new heyday for the media, one that may succeed in recreating and even surpassing the glory days of American newspapers.
When I was growing up in Detroit in the 1960s, I experienced something of that vitality. There were two newspapers in town, The Detroit News and The Detroit Free Press. You knew everything about the families in our neighborhood by the newspaper the paperboy tossed on their front doorstep each morning. Families were intensely loyal to the newspapers they read and there was something vital in that identification.
Familieswho read The Detroit News held a conservative political view and tended to follow the business headlines closely, while those who read The Free Press were liberal and tended to turn to the sports section first.
Growing up, my dad worked for The (Detroit) Free Press. Later, when I followed him into journalism, I returned to Detroit to work as an investigative reporter for The Detroit News. People, I learned, still feel passionate and protective of their news source.
I hope that you enjoy each issue of the Sunshine State News as much we enjoy producing it. But even more, I hope that if we deliver the information and insights I've promised, you'll get behind us -- and urge others to do the same.
If we succeed in our aim, we will all be better served by more appealing stories that take on issues from a new, fresh perspective.
John Wark is publisher and managing editor of Sunshine State News.
