I see Newslanc’s new design is up and running - looks really good.

Been thinking a lot about the news business lately, for obvious reasons. One thing driven home over the weekend, as we had those three big shootings in 36 hours - Binghamton, Pittsburgh, and then that Washington father who killed his kids. When something like that happens, as it happens, my first reaction is always to go to the local newspaper’s Web site. Because the local paper in all these communities is going to have the resources to throw at a story like this. The local TV stations will do a good job, though their resources may be thinner (in other words, they may have fewer people to devote to the story). The AP will have its regional reporters on the scene, and perhaps bring in some others, but they might not know the lay of the land as well. Your national news services like CNN are just going to be play catch-up.

So here’s the value of local news-gathering, and biased though this may be, I do think it is best performed by local newspapers.