Big changes in store for Armchair Mayor News as it joins NewsKamloops.com
Back row (from left), Gregg Drinnan, Linda Friesen, Claude Richmond, Steve Ceron. Front, Mike Youds, Mel Rothenburger.
Some big changes are coming for The Armchair Mayor News.
This coming week, the blog will merge with a new website called NewsKamloops.com, an online newspaper I’m pretty excited about. The new site will focus on local news about Kamloops and region, but will include a bunch of other stuff as well — a community calendar (courtesy Tourism Kamloops), Gregg Drinnan’s award-winning Taking Note hockey blog, Canadian Press news, features, a Lifestyles section, Arts & Entertainment Section, neighbourhood news, crossword and, yes, The Armchair Mayor News.
The Armchair Mayor News will become an independent section of NewsKamloops.com. The readers’ poll will move to the sidebar of the new site and there will be some other re-organizing but the free expression of opinion on important issues will remain an integral part of it.
My partners in this venture are Claude Richmond and Steve Ceron, with former Kamloops Daily News associate editor Mike Youds taking on Editor duties. Claude is President and Publisher of a new parent company, First Choice News Inc., while I’m Vice President for Content, which is a fancy title for making sure the website works every day and continues to develop new features and services. Steve, who has many years of media experience, is Vice President, Sales. Our treasurer is Linda Friesen.
In fact, all of us have a lot of media experience, and we think that gives us the ability to bring the kind of news vehicle to Kamloops that the community hasn’t had for awhile.
We’ve been working on the project with Net Shift Media for the past several months, and we’re ready to go. There will be a short overlap between The Armchair Mayor News and the launch of NewsKamloops, after which readers who call up armchairmayor.ca will be redirected to The Armchair Mayor section of the new site.
I want to thank everyone in the community for their support of this blog, especially over the past year and a half, and I hope you like the upcoming changes. Barring an unforeseen technical glitch, NewsKamloops.com will be live as of Tuesday morning.
— Mel Rothenburger
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Excellent “news”.
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Best wishes, Mel. Great idea and it sounds like a well thought out direction. Al Price
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Heartiest congrats on this good news.
Looks like a very fair minded and competent team. Hope a subscription
will be suggested as I am of the opinion that everything free is not
always fully appreciated! Life did not seem quite the same after the loss of
the Daily News.
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congratulations, and good luck !!
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I’m so pleased … all the local and other necessary news in one place and a minimum of ‘chaff’ … how great is that! Mel, you do good work!
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Never idle! Congratulations on the move but please keep The Armchair Mayor sassy!…ss
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Congratulations, that is wonderful news! Doris Galbraith
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This is awesome news! Looks like a wonderful team as well. I am really looking forward to this…. thanks so very much.
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Wow…….good for you and much success to you all.
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Best of success on the new venture Mel, it looks like a natural and a good fit for the community and your associates. Looking forward to the first issue.
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