Okay, so something happened in the last few days I never expected. A News Growl fashion profile of Vlora Çitaku became a HUGE hit in Kosovo.
I should explain, the Honorable Vlora Çitaku is the Kosovo ambassador to the US, so she there's a connection. But who knew that the people of Kosovo would have such a great reaction to what we wrote. Here's the introduction to the article that set everything off, from Kosovo's biggest online newspaper, "Telegrafi": "The famous magazine "News Growl" has named Kosovo's ambassador to the United States of America, Vlora Citaku, as the most stylish ambassador in Washington." That's right, the famous magazine News Growl. Once it appeared in Telegrafi, the story quickly spread to dozens of other Albanian-language websites. I don't actually know how many - more than twenty at least. It's hard to count them all. Lots of sites blatantly copied the Telegrafi article, like the entry from Ekonomia News. MCN Radio did a version with the same words but different pictures. Meanwhile, the Gazeta Express found a somewhat original way to describe us saying, "The prestigious magazine Growl has devoted an article to Kosovo's ambassador to the United States, stating that there are few diplomats in Washington approaching her for fashion." Prestigious! Prestigious or famous - I'll gladly take either! Now, which Kosovar politician do we profile next? :)
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Like many early adopters of the Internet, I got my first blogging experience with Live Journal. When I decided to create a new blog to chronicle my experience building a news website called News Growl (along with some other AMAZING people) I thought I'd check in on LJ again and see if it still worked. A nostalgia trip, really.
It worked okay, pretty much. There were some nice features - posts were automatically posted to my Twitter feed, etc. There was some pesky advertising i could not turn off, but I could live with that. The only weird thing was the habit of the system to switch to Russian when I logged out. Wait, what? Yes, Live Journal had been acquired by Russian investors in 2006. Who knew? But it still contained a relatively large, relatively lively English-language community so I decided it was just something to ignore. Oh yeah, News Growl has published the occasional article that is critical of Russian president Vladimir Putin, and other people associated with his regime (including Leonid Slutsky, Oleg Deripaska, and the occupation of parts of Ukraine by Russian forces). Okay, looking back on it, News Growl has been highly critical of the Russian government on a regular basis, but not in an overtly partisan way. Just in the same way every other news site not owned by Russia has been for years. Would anyone at Live Journal care if I mentioned these articles on my Live Journal blog every once in a while (along with stuff about American politics and Australian Rules football)? The idea seemed preposterous. Until this morning. I got an alert via Google there was a problem with my blog. When I tried to log on I got this message: "Your journal has been suspended. All posts from your journal are not available for reading. If you have not received information regarding this suspension, please submit a request to Support Team." I had not received any information, of course. I filled out a ticket for the support team. So far no answer. And guess what I found in the Terms of Service? Blogs must comply with the laws of the Russian Federation. I don't know the laws of the Russian Federation very well, but I can imagine I've at least brushed up against a few. So, no more Live Journal blog. Welcome to my Weebly blog! I sure hope the folks at Weebly steer clear of Russian investors. Here are some links I thought I'd share.
One is an article from the Independent Journal Review about private citizens working to clean National Park land in Washington DC with the government shut down. It's a good article, but also noteworthy because it cites a News Growl article I wrote as a source! :) https://ijr.com/national-park-clean-up-national-parks/ Also, I tried writing a blog post for Kinja. I'm not totally sure I'm going to stick with this platform. I'm trying different ones for pieces that are too much opinion for News Growl, but too long and meaty for this live journal thingummy. My third opinion piece for the Independent Voter Network was out this week, talking about the unexpected flurry of lobbyist-related stories I wrote for News Growl in December.
Normally IVN sticks to electoral politics, but were happy to run a story about lobbying. The more I learn about this the more I'm convinced this is a crucial part of government decision-making that gets way too little scrutiny. December was a great month for my relatively new position running the shop at News Growl. It also marked the first full interview on the site led by me. I've played a part in all of our previous interviews, but mostly behind the scenes. Now Patricia and I have sort of swapped roles for interviews, where I take the lead and she makes suggestions and edits.
The first result, an interview with Laura Reese, was a huge success. Laura is a newcomer to political activism, and with help from the crowdfunding platform Lobbyists 4 Good she hopes to end federal subsidies of animal agriculture. It's a big task, but the option L4G provide to ordinary citizens is really exciting. There is another interview underway (it's one I'm really excited about, mostly because it involves one of the most under-reported stories from the recent midterm elections) and there are plans to do several more. Hopefully we can get back into the swing of things as our interviews were one of our most popular features under Patricia's editorship. Oh, and December was notable for two other lobbyist-related stories: an mini-interview with Maryland pro bono lobbyist Jimmy Tarlau (I don't count this as a full interview as it was much shorter than our usual ones), and a story about South Dakota's Deb Peters, who left the South Dakota Legislature just after her reelection to join a health care association (and as I found out, must have applied for the role no more than three days after her recent election to a new four year term). Expect more on the confluence of these three lobbying-related stories soon (I hope). |
AuthorSteve has many disparate and unconnected interests. This, he thinks, entitles him to claim the label "Renaissance Man." Archives
March 2019
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