ROTHENBURGER – We’re back, in a manner of speaking

AND SO, we begin again.

You may have heard Friday that the NewsKamloops.com website, on which Armchair Mayor has resided for the past 14 months, has ceased publication.

This is too bad, as I rather liked the way we set up that website, liked what we put on it, and liked the people I worked with. I thought it had real potential and could have established itself permanently with a little more time, but when more money is going out than what’s coming in, the business model doesn’t work.

Claude Richmond, our NewsKamloops publisher, deserves a lot of credit for taking a risk. It was his idea, and he provided the financial backing, so I regret it didn’t meet with the success we’d all hoped for.

However, I won’t go into a lengthy lament about the loss of another media voice in Kamloops; instead I’ll let you know where things stand with ArmchairMayor.ca, which has been dormant while NewsKamloops was running.

The question is, can ArmchairMayor.ca be resurrected? That’s the question I’m working on with the help of those who have been contributing to the Armchair Mayor opinion page on NewsKamloops. What you’re looking at right now is not even what I would call a work in progress, or a site under construction. It’s a holding place until we can figure out the real thing.

News and commentary are my drugs. There should be a detox centre for addicted old journalists who can’t kick the habit.

When politicians speak, I have an urge to write about whether they’re right or wrong. When disasters happen in far off places, I’m as interested in how the media report on what happened as I am in the event itself. When there’s a scandal or crisis, I can’t help analyzing how corporations or governments handle it, how fast they react, how quickly they respond, how well they communicate, how long it takes them to apologize.

If Armchair Mayor does rev up again, you likely won’t find a lot of traditional news stories here. It’ll be more about what people think of the news and those who make it. I think there’s room for that in our community, because not a lot of it is being done right now.

Re-invigorating Armchair Mayor will require changes. This current site is like an old truck without power steering or brakes. Its limitations were one reason I joined Claude and designed NewsKamloops around a newspaper look with more versatility on how it operated.

I’m not interested in a website in which somebody else controls the opinions. I don’t want somebody in a corporate office deciding what’s acceptable for publication based on what’s acceptable to those who buy advertising or want to push an agenda.

You may see stuff here that offends your view of things. It may piss you off, and you’ll say, “You and your ilk are full of it and I refuse to read this crap.” In which case you can remove the Armchair Mayor from your in basket.

On the other hand, maybe it’ll make you think.

I don’t like name-calling or unnecessary roughness, but I like it when people can disagree respectfully on the same page. I don’t always agree with Harrison, McQuarrie, Ginta, etc., and vice versa, and I wouldn’t be nearly so interested in what they write if I did.

So if you disagree with me or the other columnists you see here, maybe you should write your own piece. Keep to a few basic rules but, otherwise, give ‘er.

I hope you’ll stick around — I’m as curious to see what happens as I hope you are.

armchairmayor@gmail.com