INDIANA PARLEY

This announcement is somewhat overdue.

Many of the regular readers of Indiana Parley have been wondering why the site has become a quieter place. Many visitors may have missed the news that I was tapped in February to become the editor of the weblog "Fort Wayne Observed" by its founder, Nathan Gotsch.

Mr. Gotsch is back guest-editing that weblog this week and that has given me a chance to have a breather from those duties. Mr. Gotsch has termed it my "vacation." However, please know that I am not on a real vacation; I am in Allen County and getting caught up with a myriad of tasks.

On top of that, I am the race director for the VEEP Triathlon to be held this coming Saturday morning at the J. Edward Roush Lake in Huntington County. (Those interested can still register online at www.VeepTri.com).

When I first took over at Fort Wayne Observed, I thought that I might be able to maintain both weblogs. That was a little more difficult than I had fully appreciated. I also wanted to ensure that the two weblogs were somewhat differentiated, too. Fort Wayne Observed has a narrower geographic focus and is more journalistic in nature.

Indiana Parley has always had as a goal to have a larger geographic scope. It is also a place for a greater emphasis on opinion in contrast to Fort Wayne Observed.

Simply due to the nature of news and my geographic location, Indiana Parley did not cover or comment on as many statewide or regional stories as I had originally intended.

I wrote "regional" as I have an interest in the Maumee Valley, the history of the Northwest territory, and northwest Ohio economic, transportation, watershed and political issues. I think political leaders in northeast Indiana ought to have that same interest in northwest Ohio issues, too.

So, what is the announcement?

That Indiana Parley remains open for business. The postings may be less frequent than you saw before my addition of the FWOb editorial duties in February. Keeping up the standards set by Nathan Gotsch at FWOb and becoming used to the new goals we had for that weblog were time-consuming.

I did not want the two weblogs to become so overloaded with cross-posting that reading one was almost like reading the other.

This site has been used to post some of the audio reports that were later featured on Fort Wayne Observed. That's because the AudioBlogger service allows instant posting of audio interviews even when I am some distance from a computer. You can expect some of that to still be the case.

However, I will use Indiana Parley to feature some more involved reports that aren't exclusively of northeast Indiana nature.

One example will be extensive coverage of the Indiana State Republican Convention on June 19th and 20th. While I am mentioning the Indiana Republican State Convention - I might as well mention a bit of news in that regard - the 2008 Indiana Republican State Convention will be a one-day convention held on a Saturday at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.

Thank you for your continued readership.