Blogging and Beyond: Community-based citizen journalism
Whether you're keeping an eye on City Hall, fighting to improve your kids' education or writing about your cats, blogs are putting the power of the press into the hands of ordinary citizens.But if your friends and neighbors can't find your site, why bother? The Blog Peoria Project is network of Peoria-area bloggers and citizen journalists whose sites promote and link to each others’ posts. Your posts will by promoted instantly on the front page of the Blog Peoria Project. You get access to news and how-to advice with a local slant.
Sign up now, or click on the other links for more information.Recent News from Blog Peoria
These are the most recent news updates made to the Blog Peoria Project homepage. Visit often for news about site issues, new features and additions to the Blog Peoria membership.
Your help is essential
The Blog Peoria Project is supported entirely by donations and advertising. There are costs involved.
This includes the recurring costs of hosting and for Internet access. Occasionally, computer equipment and software are needed to ensure the site works properly.
In order to ensure the functionality and decrease downtime, I would like to hire someone on a part-time basis to monitor the site, fix routine data base and scripting issues.
When there are enough donations, I pay for a WPMU Dev Premium membership, which gives this site access to professional support. In the future, I plan to apply for grants to help grow the Blog Peoria Project as an online new organization to better provide an alternative to the mainstream media.
To donate, use the PayPal donate button to the right, or contact me personally.
Stressed out by lack of support?
Can't get a file to upload? Your sidebar is out of whack? You think your theme would be absolutely perfect if just one thing was different?
Just try making that phone call to Blogger. Do they even have a number? Sure, you can start your own self-hosted site on your own domain, but if you don't know HOW, what can you do?
That's a benefit of being with the Blog Peoria Project. I'm local. You can , and I'll see what I can do. I'll work with my host and experts with WPMu to fix what's wrong and get it working. I even have a way to enter trouble tickets.
- * C.J. Summers: He's probably the best researcher and explainer out there.
- * Merle Widmer: He's a member of the county board, and he's a dogged advocate of transparency and honesty.
- * Diane Vespa: She'll scoff at the idea she's a citizen journalist, but she is. She's as responsible as anyone for fighting for kids and education.
- * Elaine Hopkins: The gloves are off for the now-retired, long time Peoria Journal Star reporter.
Places to go
Follow Blog Peoria Project updates on Twitter
Take a look at videos about citizen journalism, as well as videos about Peoria and Peorians on YouTube
Visit the River City's top portal and message board.
People to see
Not every citizen journalist operated out of The Blog Peoria Project blog (although they really ought to do). The following is a brief list of Peoria-area bloggers who have made name a name in citizen journalism:General
Site migration is now complete and no site issues remain (that I know of)It took some time, some trouble tickets and some cussin,’ but the move to the new host is complete.
I am not now aware of any site that has issues with error messages or missing pictures. The issues were caused by what was described to me as a permissions issue on the Apache server and later [...]
Themes
Site news: A new direction for defaultIf you previously were using the WordPress Mu Default Theme you may have already noticed some changes. The WPMu Default was, in fact, the default theme on this site. Today, I changed the default theme to a slightly modified version of “White as Milk,” which I think is a prettier theme and more more basic [...]
Plugins
Site news: Keep readers informed of new Blog Peoria member posts and commentsI am very, very excited about two new widgets that every single Blog Peoria Project member blogger can use. Global Recent Posts widget works like the “recent posts” widget many of you already use. But it displays recent posts from every single Blog Peoria Project blog. Global Recent Comments widget does the same thing as [...]
Announcements
Site migration is now complete and no site issues remain (that I know of)It took some time, some trouble tickets and some cussin,’ but the move to the new host is complete.
I am not now aware of any site that has issues with error messages or missing pictures. The issues were caused by what was described to me as a permissions issue on the Apache server and later [...]
How-to
Site News: Introducing WordPress instructional videosThis is the first in a series of videos that will show how to use your Word Press blog.
This one is an introductory video that is designed to give new users an overview in how to use their spiffy new blog. As I download and post more of them, we’ll get into how to do [...]
Members
Welcome new Blog Peoria Project memberThe notorious HipKat has migrated his blog from Blogger — where it was languishing with few readers — to the Blog Peoria Project. Now, his is part of the small but growing community of Peoria-area bloggers.
HipKat also is active in the Peoria.com community.
Cross posted from Peoria Pundit.
