The Waltham Globe
My office looks out on Route 128 and since last fall, I've been watching the demolition of a building, clearing of the site and now the digging for the foundation of a new office building. They've been blasting and when this is about to happen, state police stop traffic in front of the building across all eight lanes of the highway.
I'm sure that blocking traffic is necessary to keep Massachusetts drivers, rubberneckers all of us, from driving off the road. But it also creates nasty traffic jams during times when travelers would typically expect to get from point A to point B in a reasonable amount of time.
Route 128 carries something like 200,000 cars a day and continued development of big office buildings and shopping areas along it affects people who live and work along 128.
Where should those people turn for information about the development? Big regional newspapers? Well, no. The last time the Boston Globe, for example, covered this sort of development was four months ago.
Obviously they can't cover everything repeatedly. But where are 200,000 who wonder what blew up next to Uno's to go?
I keep heading for Wicked Local. I'm so happy that a news outlet recognizes that there's much more to the Boston area than Boston itself. And for those who love the city, a coworker recently pointed me to Universal Hub, a wonderful aggregate of all things local.
Financial constraints and, certainly, assumptions about what the masses want to read have for years impacted regional dailies' coverage of companies that haven't yet reached the size of a Fidelity or EMC. As someone who believes the action is with the smaller companies, I've long been irked by this.
This opening has cleared the decks for the success of an Xconomy, which is more than happy to dive into the growing tech companies (disclosure: this one's a client) that drive much of our local economy.
Without a doubt, major media have done much to successfully rework themselves, but I have to believe that readership of newer sources will keep growing as people like me look to the news outlets in their backyard.
Posted by Laura Kempke on March 19, 2008 at 11:26 AM
