Rising from the wreckage of the East Valley Tribune, four longtime political writers and editors have launched a new political news site, The Arizona Guardian.
Paul Giblin, Dennis Welch, Patti Epler, and and Mary Reinhart have joined together, along with Bob Grossfeld (in charge of non-editorial stuff) to form the company behind the website, Arizona Guardian LLC.
Yes, in a move that is reminiscent of the long lost "good ol' days" of journalism, the journalists will be in charge of making journalistic decisions, not some bungee managers whose sole journalism credential is that they may have once read a newspaper between MBA classes.
In an email publicizing their project, they called this the "soft rollout" period, leading me to expect that they'll go to a pay-for-access or advertiser-supported (or some combination of the two) model soon.
Based on what is currently on the site (the possibility of Sue Gerard returning to the Department of Health, a profile of Democratic State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, and a likely date for Jan Brewer to name her choice to replace her as Secretary of State [next Monday], etc.) and the professional histories of the principals (lots of investigative work), I'm hopeful for this site's journalistic success. Certainly, it should be better than the late and not so lamented PolitickerAZ. It should even be more informative than the Arizona Capitol Times, a publication whose news content is mostly filler to wrap around the revenue center of the paper, the legal notices.
As for *business* success, we'll just have to wait and see.
Also, thus far, The Arizona Guardian seems to be non-partisan, though I'm sure that the first time they do an investigative piece on an elected official, that official's supporters will accuse the Guardian of working for the other party.
They seem to be leaving the partisan sniping exactly where it belongs - with bloggers and press secretaries.
Anyway, I wish the Arizona Guardian and its principals success, and hope they bring a modicum of real journalism to AZ's political scene.
Later!
Full disclosure section of the post - I have no association with the Guardian, its principals, or its staff. In fact, I have never even met any of the principals and have no idea who its staffers may be.
So there. :))
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