Apparently there’s blogging going on around Mission San Juan Capistrano…
Congratulations to the Capistrano Insider blog! The OC Weekly has selected them as this year’s “Best Blog of Orange County.”
Here’s what the OC Weekly had to say about the Capistrano Insider Blog:
Beyond the Blackboard
Everyone generally agrees that the students in Capistrano Unified School District are good kids; it’s the parents and politicians who shoot spitballs. The South County school district has spent half of this decade immersed in “adult-centered” turmoil, stirred up by the alleged misdeeds of superintendent James Fleming (who should be heading to trial any day now) and only made more frothy last year by the election of a board of trustees proclaiming “reform.”
Personality conflicts, misused funds, statewide budget panic and lingering suspicions that the district’s new regime consists of evangelical anti-public-school saboteurs—all these things make the Capistrano Dispatch’s Beyond the Blackboard blog reading material that calls for popcorn. Dispatch editor Jonathan Volzke serves up a near-daily dose of gossipy tidbits, connect-the-dots ruminations, unearthed public documents and live updates from the district’s marathon board meetings. Extra credit goes to anyone who can identify the trustees, PTA moms and teachers of the year who bicker anonymously in the comments and turn each blog item into a sandbox for grown-ups acting like bullies.
If the Capistrano blog is interesting, it’s because two warring sides make it so. However, for OC Weekly to decide which blog is “best” lacks impact. I’ve read OC Weekly or at least tried to. It has one decent reporter, Scott Moxley, and a team of neophytes who cannot write, report or present factual information. Best case, OC Weekly is pornographic advertising with one news story per week — if Moxley is in the mood.
How can “best” be limited to such a small geographical area of interst? Perhaps it is the best food fight, but does that make for a dispersed readership? Seems awful weak.
Watching from a Distance: Where do we lie? And those porno ads? Where are they? All I see it pot ads.
Congrats to Jonathan Volzke and his crew at the Capistrano Insider blog. Along with their online newspapers they do a great job of serving the South County reader. This is a BIG step up from last year’s winner – some old guy from Costa Mesa who tries to do it all by himself. Wait a minute! That’s me! Oh well…