Lake Effect News, Lemons and Lorraine Swanson

Today is Day Three for "Lake Effect News," an online news site by veteran journalist Lorraine Swanson. She's been covering neighborhoods on Chicago's north side for 16 years, and most recently was the editor and primary writer of News-Star. In March, Chicago Journal sold off News-Star and Swanson was on her own. She has turned lemons into lemonade by doing what few laid-off journalists have done. Rather than sit around lamenting her fate, or complaining about the tax structure of for-profit, dying newspapers, Swanson has put her personal devotion to local journalism to work. Lake Effect News (LEN)is off to a good start. LEN was linked to overnight by about 200 other web sites. The first ones to link to LEN, of course, were local blogs such as 24/7 North of Howard Watchers (in Rogers Park) and Uptown Update. Of course, we linked up right away too; I believe that we were the only ones to publish her entire, well-crafted press release. (Whoever wrote that release should be working for major PR firm or ad agency.) Then the local "big boys" got into the act. A glowing report by Mike Miner of The Chicago Reader didn't hurt, and has helped to direct a lot of traffic to Swanson's LEN within it's first two days. You can see a list of who links to Lake Effect News by clicking here. Swanson and LEN seemed destined for well-deserved success. Chicago's north side neighborhoods are richer for having them. Leave a Comment on our Guestbook! CommieBama Hats and More Chicago News Bench RSS Feed Follow ChiNewsBench on Twitter