About done

I've been working on the events blog to make it a useful tool. By the end of this week, I should have it hammered into enough shape to start maintaining itself. This means I'll have time and get back to writing PJ-related stuff soon.

I've fielded some questions about the events blog as a PJ tool. I'd suggest other PJs could find great use building up their own regularly scheduled events lists. It allows the PJ to have something available with little notice if a story falls apart. It also helps build idea and contact files for various subjects and organizations.

The monthly events lists are difficult to build and maintain. I needed them down here for various reasons, so I had to make it. If a PJ's newspaper already has a functioning online events calendar, it's not worth the trouble.

However, PJs who know what's happening will always have an advantage when dealing with the word side of the house. If a PJ knows about a weeklong event, a reporter without forethought can't act as if it's a surprise on the last day of the event. If the event was so critical, it would have been assigned when the PJ knew about it a month before it happened.

Likewise, if a PJ really wants to cover a particular event because it has visual potential, s/he can pitch the subject to a amiable reporter and get to spend a day on the beach rather than at a zoning commission meeting. Knowledge is power. ;-}

Enough for now,