Nearly five years ago, I went to work on the kernel of an idea on how to reinvent journalism to serve the community using the technology of the 21st century -- a central place where all of Los Angeles can come to share their knowledge and ideas and learn about what's going on in our city.
It started with the launch of the Daily News citizen journalism website valleynews.com and has evolved in the last year into OurLA.org with the help of Internet experts, business and civic leaders and community activists from across Los Angeles.
This is
really exciting, a dream coming true for me. It is what I set out to do when I left the Daily News in April and started blogging and became a community activist.
Operating
under Community Partners auspices and with the help of its President and CEO Paul Vandeventer
and Senior Program Director Cynthia Freeman who refined the concept of Our
L.A., we are now able to seek tax deductible contributions.
If you
wish to contribute, you may send a check to Community Partners FBO (for the
benefit of) Our LA,
Our LA is
intended to be the
This is a non-profit because it's meant to belong to the community.
Toward that end we
will be creating an advisory board and a series of regional networks who want
to be involved in helping to develop this Public Square into a place where the
grassroots of civic engagement can grow into a new civic culture for Los
Angeles, a place where people of all backgrounds and beliefs can come together
and give birth to a new spirit for the city.
The success of Our LA will depend on your participation and the value it brings to you and the community.
Our LA will launch in the spring. Please let me know what you think and your interest in being involved.
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the National Enquirer.
Congratulations! Who said you can't teach an old dog new tricks?
Hi, Bruno, you are a good dog. You and Ron are a great pair. And this is really great news.
I remember the Green Sheet. Geez, I even remember the Helms Bakery Trucks.
Brave new world this internet news coverage. I heard a great idea the other day in which the pundit proposed that our traditional print newspapers may have to become non-profit entities in order to survive, much the same way that museums are. They may have to change their character from being businesses into being entities that the community and gov't. supports because they are needed for the public good. Sort of like KCET and KPCC.
I don't know. We'll see. But I can't imagine a world without a paper newspaper. Just as I can't imagine a world without a library.
Oh, yeah, I remember valleynews.com -- a real hallmark of good journalism. That site had more p-r puffery than the Daily News' real web pages, and that is no small task.
Kaye, your time has come and gone. Your decade of crusading at the Daily News for a city to hang your masthead on was a miserable flop.
Go get a job at Kaiser Permanente or some other flack shop and stop wasting bandwidth. At a time we need professional newswriters, editors and copydesks we get valleynews 2.0. Spare us.
Hi Ron: heard you on kevin james show at K.R.L.A. 870 A.M. 9 - 1 P.M.- A.M. sounds interesting what you're doing. I woud like to keep abrest on what yo're doing. You might check on the new proposed 710 tunnel,( toll fee tax) and also paid for by taxpayers, another multi billion dollar ricket to ???? At one of the meetings we were given some historical background on 710 can you believe attorneys, politicians,developers and cal-trans has been at this project for over 50 years??? Sounds like job security to me.
there was only one comment, maybe aong winded? I didn't fill the whole box??????????????????