October 10, 2005

Shocking But True

Today I am announcing major changes to BillHobbs.com, effective immediately, that will alter this blog's content and its role in the blogosphere for the foreseeable future. The short version: I am putting my writing of political commentary on indefinite hiatus. I am not, repeat, not completely shutting BillHobbs.com down or disappearing from the blogosphere. I am merely taking a break from what has become a rather time-consuming and uncompensated hobby in order to put more focus on my family, my career, and an increasing workload of blog-related consulting for corporate and political clients.

I started writing my blog almost four years ago - Nov. 30, 2001 - as an adjunct to my weekly newspaper column in the Nashville City Paper, to provide readers of that column with more information, including links to documents and data I cited. (I started this blog over on the Blogger service without really knowing what a 'blog' was or what it could be.(After publishing there for more than two years, I moved the site Jan. 1, 2004, to this URL.) It has been an incredible and educational experience, and I've never been more positive about the future of blogs as a journalistic medium. But after four years of doing this blog - I'm ready to make some changes.

The biggest change: I'm going to suspend writing about politics for awhile. After four years of writing about Tennessee state government and the state budget - more, actually, if you count the more than a year that I wrote about that topic for the City Paper and, before that, for about a year for the now-defunct weekly In Review - I need a break from it.

I'll be publishing non-political essays here from time to time - because I'm a writer not just by trade and training but by nature. I might also do some more photo-blogging. And, occasionally, if I have some new insight into this fast-evolving new world of citizen journalism that hasn't already been noted by Jeff Jarvis or J.D. Lasica or Jay Rosen I might peck out an essay on that.

But what you won't see me doing is day-to-day coverage of and commentary on what's in the news that day in state or national politics and government. Instead, I'll post, without commentary, links to articles and blog posts that I've read and think you might like or benefit from reading too.

When I started this blog I had no idea what it would become - a fascinating experience in an exciting new form of journalism that is, hands down, superior to any form of journalistic medium that's gone before. If I can in the future I'd like to be involved in teaching Tennessee bloggers some basic journalistic skills and techniques so that they can do on their blogs the same kind of in-depth, fact-based journalism I've done here - because there's no fact or story I've ferreted out and published here that any other blogger - or any of my readers - couldn't have found themselves and brought to light.

Journalism isn't difficult - and you don't need a four-year degree to do it or do it well. You need to be able to ask the right question, you need to know how to find information, you need to write reasonably well, and you need to be accurate and be honest. And you need a place to publish - a blog.

I'm excited to see that, in just the last year or so, a vibrant second generation of bloggers focused on Tennessee state government and state politics has emerged - bloggers like Matt White, Bob Krumm, Blake Wylie and Sharon Cobb and others that you'll find on my blogroll - and, if I can, I'd like to help more emerge. Nothing would be better for state government than to have every part of it watch-dogged daily by a handful of bloggers who all know how to dig up information, ask good questions, and write well.

While I won't be doing daily political commentary here, I do plan on remaining involved in the Nashville-area blogosphere. I'll continue working with Sharon Cobb on what I call the Citizen's Editorial Board project - organizing the monthly lunch series for Nashville-area political bloggers to converse with an invited politician or political candidate. We currently are awaiting word from U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr.'s Senate campaign as to whether he will be our guest at such a lunch later this month.

I also will be working more on developing the VolPols.com project, which was created to provide every single member of the Tennessee legislature a free blog if they want one. My critics should note: both of those are non-partisan projects.

So, that's it for now.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that advertisers currently running on the site will be offered a pro-rated refund.