On July 30, 2006, I took one small step in creating a free blog using free blogger software. I did so for very specific reasons that have long since been rendered irrelevant by history. But I also did so for reasons that stay with us today – I wanted to create a news source that covered the stories that other papers and news entities were not covering, to be able to analyze stories from different perspectives and in greater detail, and to foster community discussion all in the furtherance of exposing the dark underbelly of what purported to be a progressive community.
I did so with no background in journalism whatsoever. So it was a learning process. One of the biggest lessons I have learned is that you cannot tell people what to think. It sounds simple, but people are intelligent and will reach their own conclusions and so, while I started out with a hybrid of news and commentary in the same articles, over the years I have tried to separate news from opinion.
Have I achieved perfection in these efforts? By no means. But read early articles and compare them to recent articles.
Even within my opinions I have moved away from definitively taking a stand, toward asking questions and attempting to foster community dialogue.
The Vanguard has grown much in terms of mission, professionalism and readership since those early days in 2006 when I was happy if we got 100 readers in a day. This year, more than 1 million people will read the Vanguard. Our two most popularly read articles this year will pass 40,000 readers this week. This is no longer a small, one person community blog.
While I remain the executive director and have the responsibility of day-to-day reporting, soliciting guest pieces, raising money, and managing dozens of interns and volunteers, this has become a much broader community-based organization.
We have a non-profit board consisting of Stan Dundon (chair), Matt Williams (Treasurer), Cecilia Escamilla-Greenwald (Secretary), Carolyn Hinshaw, Pam Nieberg, Charlotte Krovoza, and Robert Canning.
We have an editorial board consisting of myself, Matt Williams, Cecilia Escamilla-Greenwald, Tia Will, Brian Riley, Ingrid Salim and Melissa Martinez.
We have the Vanguard Court Watch Council which consists of Bernita Toney, Diane Evans, Teresa Williams, Lynn Rose-Jimenez, Melanie Carlton, Patty Zloczewski, Frank Gonzalez, Joan Branin, Anthony Palik, Cruz Reynoso, and James Hernandez.
We have 8 to 12 Court Watch Interns monitoring the court every week.
Don Shor volunteers as our moderator and “highbeam” volunteers as our copy editor.
That doesn’t include a number of volunteers who perform critical functions like helping with our annual fundraiser. That doesn’t include the work of our legal advisors, people like Paul Boylan who filed the petition to keep the courtroom open in the Marsh case and to release the Davis Fire Report.
That’s around 35 people from throughout our community who volunteer to make the Vanguard what it has become today.
The Vanguard and the Davis Enterprise have had, at times, a rocky relationship. Some of that has been our own doing – our criticism of some of the articles and especially of a certain columnist who has a huge sounding board.
But in most ways, the Vanguard and Davis Enterprise are not and never will be true competitors. We have different purposes and perspectives.
The Vanguard cannot match at this point the Enterprise‘s circulation and reach in the community. While I have turned over a lot of the day-to-day reporting of the court, by necessity, to the Court Watch Interns, for the most part the day-to-day reporting in the Vanguard is provided by myself, with some guest pieces from time to time.
The Enterprise does not have as many regular beat reporters as it used to, but they have separate reporters for the city council, schools, county, and crime. Not to mention sports and entertainment, that we largely do not cover.
On the other hand, while we do not have the overall readership of the Enterprise, because we focus on 2-4 stories a day typically, it is entirely possible that a higher percentage of our readers will see what is in the Vanguard whereas many people read the Enterprise not for their opinion page or local coverage but rather to read about the local sports teams or find out what’s happening in the community.
The traditional media is really set up to be a one-way authoritative medium. As one person suggested to me, people reading the Enterprise tend to be accepting of the truth of the coverage – whether or not the individual article may contain errors or oversights.
Moreover and more importantly, the Vanguard has become a vital forum with 100 to 200 comments a day not being unusual.
City officials and others have begun to recognize the value of this dialogue. Trial balloons have been floated at times in the Vanguard, either through my articles or, increasingly, the work of Rob White who has become a crucial link between city hall and the citizens of Davis.
They may not always like the feedback, but at the end of the day they know where both sides of an issue sit, and a little bit of what is in the middle.
A few weeks ago I floated an overheard idea of moving the train station to UC Davis. The feedback on the Vanguard was loud and clear – for a variety of reasons citizens overwhelmingly did not like the idea. In fact, at the last council meeting, Alan Miller raised the issue during his public comment to argue against it.
The city now knows where the public stands and it seems very unlikely that the idea will ever get a serious proposal.
I still believe the city made an error not getting the issue of Mace Curve 391 to the Vanguard earlier in the process. The early play would have avoided the suspicions that arose by the nature of the way the item came forward.
That would have allowed the proposal to be debated on its merits – and it had a lot of merits. We would have been able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the proposal and the proposers might have been able to fix and address some concerns.
As I have told numerous people I have met with in the last two weeks – you cannot be afraid of getting feedback. You get feedback no matter how you approach an issue. It comes when the item lands on the council agenda and when it gets discussed at council. You can control the timing of the delivery and then get a sense for where the public stands and whether you can fix some of the problems identified.
Think about it, people pay $50,000 to run good polls – and they can get a lot of feedback for free through vehicles like the Vanguard.
Is it representative of everyone’s opinion? By no means, but listening to people like Frankly, Matt Williams, Don Shor, Michael Harrington, Mr. Toad and others gives you a very real sense for what a broad array of people would like.
The one thing I would improve is that, while we get thousands of readers each day, we get may 30 to 50 different people commenting at any one time. I would love to see more voices. It can be daunting and the people who post are clearly very intelligent but also opinionated – but everyone’s voice is important and we try to take safeguards to protect people and keep the discussion clean and civil.
Are we perfect? By no means. But I think we’ve come a long way in the last seven years and I’m very proud of what this endeavor has created.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
David, you have a lot to be proud of. I think you have improved the Vanguard over the years. You have done better separating reporting from opinion. I think the blog is a valuable add to the community. Keep up the good work!
for once I completely agree with frankly.
In the past few weeks I have had several ad hoc conversations about posting on the Vanguard. Almost universally what was shared was that the reason why the individual I was talking to and many others don’t post on the Vanguard boiled down to one issue . . . anonymous postings.
The spectrum of specific thoughts about anonymous posting varied from the relatively benign, [i]”It allows people to be nasty”[/i] or [i]”Perhaps you know who’s on the Vanguard? I can’t tell,”[/i] to the more confrontational, [i]”Yes I stopped commenting on the Vanguard long ago. I do not believe in anonymous dialogue. I will read those who sign their names but the others? They want to have a free one way ride with no repercussions. They have a soapbox but no guts.”[/i]
I also know that some posters who have actually posted using their names have experienced blowback/consequences, so I find myself wondering if there isn’t some middle ground that can result in more participation and a broader audience.
In the process of hearing her out a thought came to me that one possible solution to that issue might be to have two separate forums, one that allows anonymous posting and the other that does not. Each story would post in both forums and then the two separate threads of commentary/discussion would proceed from there. Is this an idea worth discussing with the Editorial Board?
“They want to have a free one way ride with no repercussions. They have a soapbox but no guts.”
Glad this anonymous person no longer posts. What a nasty person.
Consider that most people who read the Vanguard are here to consider and respond to the ideas and issues. Other than David’s, why should we care who it is advancing the thoughts?
The Vanguard, like other online publications, has rules regarding nastiness and has Don Shor to enforce them. (Incidentally, I thought at first that I know this person, but soon realized that he/she could be posting/enforcing under a pseudonym.)
Why should repercussions be the price of participation?
[i]”It allows people to be nasty”[/i]
[i]”They want to have a free one way ride with no repercussions.”[/i]
[i]”I also know that some posters who have actually posted using their names have experienced blowback/consequences”[/i]
Other than to point out the irony contained in these comments, I have some comments.
1. I don’t think being anonymous or not changes what a person would post. I would guess that the same personality of the poster would shine through regardless if he/she uses a pseudonym or not.
2. I think those that complain about this are largely the same that are used to counting on shaming and personal attacks within the context of political correctness to prevent others from expressing views they disagree with. This would especially be true in a college town where the professional academics are used to either being the one talking, or the one having to listen. These people claim to support diversity to the nth degree… except for diversity of thought and opinion outside their rules for opinions they consider acceptable.
There is a line between colorful and direct opinion, and what one should consider “nasty”. Sometimes what is described as being ‘nasty” is simply an unwanted opinion. A vibrant and robust community blog is one where we should be much more tolerant of styles, personalities and opinions. People that can’t handle the conflict should probably stick to a closed bubble of people they feel they can safely converse with. And, there is too much risk for many people to post with their full name. I know that first hand.
As usual, I completely (or somewhat) agree with Frankly and Davis Progressive. The Vanguard makes great contributions to our community.
It fills a longtime gap and provides eyes in places that have been overlooked for too long. Keeping government from keeping secrets where the Enterprise fears to tread has opened our local institutions and politics.
Nice job, David, and the rest of you who contribute to this effort.
Anonymous posting allows me to express my ideas more freely. After the pepper spraying incident on campus I tried to have a dialogue with people regarding my thoughts on Facebook. People who disagreed with me got very nasty and began personally attacking me in ways so aggressive and mean I began to fear for my personal safety. I went back and deleted all of my post.
Recently on this blog I was able to have the discussion I was looking for, back when the incident first occurred. I was anonymous so I didn’t need to worry about backlash and because this site is moderated nasty personal attacks did not occur. I was able to have a productive, constructive conversation on the issue with people who disagreed with me.
Non anonymous post I’ve made in the past on Facebook and in the Enterprise ended in disaster for me. My thoughts and opinions were taken out of context and used to malign not only me personally but an organization I was associated with. I was even confronted by an angry person at my kids school in front of my kids.
I came to the sad realization that I could not post my opinions and thoughts on issues’s publicly anymore, but I still possessed a strong desire to hash out these thoughts and feelings on issues. Luckily I soon discovered this blog, which has given me an avenue to do so. I have a rule that I don’t post anything under my “handle name” that I wouldn’t under my real name. But Posting anonymously gives me freedom to express my opinions without fear of retribution to myself, my family, or groups I’m associated with. I’m grateful to David and everyone who works on the Vanguard for this ability.
Hey – what every happened to Rich Rifkin? Did the firefighters take him out?
Here’s a list of “the missing” Feel free to add names I may have forgotten:
Adam Smith
Alan Miller
Bill Ritter
David Thompson
davisite2
Eileen Samitz
Elaine Roberts Musser
Greg Kuperberg
Herman
hpierce
Ken Wagstaff
Octane
Pam Nieberg
Richard Livingston
Rich Rifkin
Roger Bockrath
rusty49
Siegel
Sue Greenwald
wdf1
Matt, you’ve come up with an interesting issue. Maybe David and the editorial board could follow up with “the missing” and determine “the whys” with a survey.
With respect to Elaine Roberts Musser, I remember the really nasty Labor Day 2012 personal attacks and was disappointed (but not at all surprised) to see her opt out. A pseudonym might have retained her valuable contributions.
I’ve appreciated Davis city council participation. Sue Greenwald and Stephen Souza put up with some grief–as the current council members do–but anonymity isn’t really a practical option for those who seek political support.
Do we need to hold on-line services for anyone on your list?
People come, people go, for their own reasons. Some of those folks have participated quite recently.
Well, to paraphrase Samuel L. Clemens (who wrote under a pseudonym), “the rumor of my disappearance has been greatly exaggerated”.
Pretty sure Don, David, and Matt know who I am.
I would point out that employees of UCD, City of Davis, DJUSD, County of Yolo, State, etc., might not be willing to share factual information (much less their opinions) to this site if they could not do so anonymously. Take your pick… facts, or “facts” posited with bias, or suppositions without any basis in fact (but said with pseudo-‘authority’).
Personal attacks, etc., should be off-limits whether the poster uses their real name or not [tho’ I admit that I have sometimes responded to ‘attacks’ in a less than mature way].
Best to all.
[quote]This year, more than 1 million people will read the Vanguard. [/quote]
I suspect you do not correctly understand the meaning of web metrics. Do you really believe that 1 million different people will read the Vanguard?
The Vanguard is read many of my friends in the UK, now.
Should be ” by many “. Wish you had an edit button.
And, more than a million of my own closest friends read the Vanguard on a fairly frequent basis.
One compromise would be to require people to use a “subpoena-able” email address when they register for a handle, for example, by using their come comcast.com e-mail address or a have their registration validated through a text message to their cell phone. In order to make it work, people would have to be assured, through the user agreement, that Vanguard staff will not snoop on people’s home e-mail addresses or cell phone numbers. This way people could be anonymous, but not to the exent of being un-subpoena-able in the case of libel. This would tend to cut down on nasty comments, too, because, even though many types of nasty comments might be fully lawful and not libellous, still they would think twice before making the nasty comments, knowing they could potentially be found out later, down the road.
*their home comcast.com e-mail address
Brian- Now that I’ve participated on this blog for a while I would totally trust my identity to the Vanguard Staff. But when I first started using it I was pretty gun shy from previous mentioned experiences. I would have not felt comfortable providing any real personal info, and probably never would have started commenting if required to do so.
Of coarse if someone really wanted to track my identity for legal purposes I bet they could.