WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A new website has made its debut, and I wonder if it provides a look at a unified digital future. Called TBD.com (www.tbd.com), it has strong editorial leadership and a deep pocket backer. Most importantly, it seems to me, it offers access to TV, blogs and wide-ranging local content. A good initial review of it appeared here. Once you've explored and made your own assessment, take a step back and think of the lyrics of John Lennon's "Imagine" ... "Imagine there's no county , it isn't hard to do ..."
Now, let's go back to TBD.
First, let's get the disclaimers out of the way. The general manager is Jim Brady, former executive editor of Washingtonpost.com, and a long-time newsperson. Jim is on the board of the NPF. The publisher is Robert L. Allbritton, whose Allbritton Communications Company often buys a table for journalists at our annual fundraising dinner. His father, Joe L. Allbritton, while publisher of the Washington Star, made an anonymous contribution to NPF in the late 1970s that helped the founders kick-start this organization. Allbritton Communications publishes POLITICO, the print and online powerhouse. NPF has an informal collaboration with POLITICO to hold a monthly series of free Capitol Hill briefings for journalists (the University of Indiana's Center on Congress is also involved); John Harris, editor of POLITICO, is on our board. I didn't talk to any of them for this posting, and I have no idea if they'll think I'm right.
Let's look at what TBD says about itself: "TBD is a TV station and website that delivers local news and community information from the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. region." The mission statement has a lot more of interest. What interests me here is the emphasis on the TV station first, and then the website. The TV station has existed for some time as an all-news News Channel 8, which is now called -- TBD TV. There's also a a connection to a traditional TV news operation within the larger operation, ABC7, owned by Allbritton Communications. Go to the TBD site, and click on ABC7 and you get cycled back to -- TBD.com. Add original content to TBD TV, pivately run blogs, local coverage by neighborhoods, uploaded comments on restaurants, etc., and you get the idea. All is accessible from your laptop.
I'm not talking business or financial integration here, where costs can be slashed by cutting the staff and having two people do the work of four. I'm talking integration of a great deal of content.
And I'm wondering whether that's the future TBD.com is suggesting.
-- Bob Meyers
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