Blog - Decatur Metro

Decatur is a town bustling with activity on the border of the city limits of Atlanta. ‘Decatur Metro’ is a blog specifically to relay the latest news of events occurring in and around the city. Anything from book festivals to new cake shops opening up are some of the headlines posted on this blog. In fact, the structure of this blog is such that it even looks like a news blog more than an individual blogging about what he observes.

The blogger seems to gather his information from credible sources, such as the Atlanta- Journal Constitution and the local Decatur newspaper. Each blog post is set up so that the outside news source is italicized to further relay its significance to the post. The blogger then follows up the news story with a little bit of his or her opinion on the subject. Occasionally, the blogger or followers of the blog post photos from the event they are blogging so that readers can have a visual from the event. For example, the post “Good Use of a Hill,” the reader would not be able to understand the subject of the blog without a clear visual about which hill is being used and how it is being used. Fortunately, the blogger provides a photo of the water slide at the First Baptist Church.

The big question is why would a blogger care to write about a suburb/ sub-section of Atlanta when no major news occurs their on a daily basis? As we discussed in class on Wednesday, September 2, a lot of these local bloggers realize that local news is becoming almost nonexistent in today’s global media. It only makes sense that people who care a lot about their community would want to get the information out to people in their city, like Decatur, about activities and services that are available to them on a regular basis. Another reason is to maintain the identity of the city of Decatur singular from Atlanta, now that the metro Atlanta has basically engulfed all of North Central Georgia. With the advent of the Internet and other technologies, local papers have gone the way of the typewriter: while some are still around and used, they are definitely outdated and other media are better suited for today’s demands. Blogs have now become the new “local paper” of sorts for cities like Decatur. ‘Decatur Metro’ is just one of a growing population of bloggers that strive to relay local news, instead of conforming to today’s standards of only writing about a few stories that are repeated over and over again for at least a week.

To learn more about the blog I wrote about, check out http://www.decaturmetro.com/