Veteran FlashReport leaders are quite familiar with the writings of Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Weintraub. I have actually known Dan for almost two decades, going back to when he actually worked for the Orange County Register. Dan’s insightful and inciteful columns are always great reading and we almost always provide FR readers to links to his regular columns in the Bee on our main page daily news links. In addition to being a recognized columnist who has an important
impact on policy and politics in the Golden State, Dan (pictured) was truly a pioneer in launching his Insider blog on the Sacramento Bee website years ago — serving as an inspiration to many of us who followed him.
In June, I had a chance to sit down with Dan in Sacramento, and he enthusiastically shared with me that he would be spearheading a new endeavor for the Sacramento Bee called The Conversation. At the time, I told him that once it was up and running, I would love to interview him about it for FR readers. Well, he has in-fact started in his new project, and below is an interview I conducted with Dan yesterday…
FlashReport (FR): Dan, there are a lot of changes taking place in the newspaper business these days. A lot of restructuring it going on, to see how newspapers, and their websites, can adapt to a new dynamic — an interactive experience for readers. You are heading up an exciting new project for the Sacramento Bee, for whom you have been a political columnist for many years now. Can you share with FR readers more about the changes at the Bee, and what you will be doing?"
Dan Weintraub (DW): My new project, called “The Conversation,” is part of the Bee’s aggressive new approach to expand our online readership. One of the things we want to do is engage in more interaction with our readers. On the opinion page, we also want to become more of a platform where people can come and exchange ideas, rather than simply a place where we tell people what we think and maybe have a place for them to react. We’re trying to create more of a back-and-forth, between us and our readers and among the readers themselves.
So just as my California Insider blog was an experiment when it started five years ago, and blogs on mainstream news sites are now commonplace, I see the Conversation as an experiment that will explore whether there is a desire on the part of web users for a spirited and civil discussion about politics and public policy.
Most of the online discussion by readers these days is either preaching to the choir on partisan or ideologically tilted sites, or it’s screeching at each other on neutral sites, mostly newspapers. My goal is to bring all sides to the same place, encourage them to have it out with few holds barred, but try to keep the screeching to a minimum. We’d like to eliminate the personal attacks and the name calling and just have a debate, or a series of debates, on the issues of the day.
Each Sunday, I will write or solicit a full-length commentary and also collect three or four much shorter comments, more like blog-items, on the same topic. We’ll publish all of those in our Sunday Forum section and on our web page at www.sacbee.com/conversation. Then we’ll invite people to participate in a discussion of that topic, which I will host. I’ll jump into the discussion to pose questions, answer questions if asked, and offer facts and sources if I think it will help resolve a dispute. We’ll keep that conversation going for a few days or up to a week, then archive it and move on to the next topic.
FR: For the record, I just want to say that we think very highly of those "ideologically tilted sites" here at the FlashReport. Well, as long as they are tilted our way, of course! Dan, I am very much looking forward to seeing this new project develop. Since you’ve already had lift-off, what are the topics that you have covered so far, and what are some of the areas you are looking to expand upon in future Conversations? As a columnist, and especially on your now-suspended Insider blog, you really maintained a wonderful objectivity in your writing. I think that you are the perfect person to task with this new project at the Bee!
DW: Thanks.
We’ve done three conversations so far. The first one was on the wisdom of “smart growth.” The main piece was written by Joel Kotkin, who is a student of urban history and something of a skeptic on the topic of regional planning and the push to get people out of their cars, into public transportation and/or living in downtown high rises. One of the commenters I recruited for that package was the executive director of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments and a big believer in “smart growth” and high-density residential development.
We also did a package on the state budget around the theme of “Where would you cut?” I wrote a short introductory piece for that package and then a series of blurbs explaining how much the budget had grown in different agencies and programs. We enlisted four non-expert observers to tell us where they would cut. That might have been our most successful one so far. We got nearly 100 comments and almost all of them were very thoughtful and constructive, no matter what their point of view.
The third week we looked at the “local foods” movement. The main piece was a sympathetic take by our own Stuart Leavenworth, while one of the commenters was a UC Davis professor who suggested that buying local was not always best for the land, the poor or the farmers.
This week we’re looking at the issue of gangs, in light of a desire by some Sacramento officials to raise the sales tax by a quarter-cent to fund gang prevention efforts. I’m going to look at how the city of San Jose has gone about this, in a rather successful fashion, without raising taxes.
FR: I have heard from a number of FR readers who have been long time fans of your blog, The Insider. One of them wrote to me saying, "Jon, you have a lot of influence. Can’t you use some of it to get Weintraub to continue his Insider blog?" Pretty funny. But the point is well taken — your Insider blog was really the first major blog site to cover California politics — serving as an inspiration to me and a host of others to jump into the business of blogging. Are you going to miss the Insider? Obviously we’ll get some of your insights from the Conversation? And of course you’ll still be penning regular columns, right?
DW: I will miss the Insider in some ways, but in some ways I won’t. It’s always nice to have an online forum where you can just spout off any time you like on any subject. But I think it would be difficult to keep two blogs going at once, especially since I am now both a writer and an editor, soliciting and editing the contributions to the Sunday package. Also, the online world has changed a lot in the five years since I started that blog. In the first few years I was one of the only online sources of breaking news that was easily accessible to readers. So I could combine news and opinion and analysis in one very active package. That kind of frequent posting is, I think, important to the success of any blog. Now the Bee has Capitol Alert, where Shane Goldmacher and the entire Capitol Bureau post all the news that moves as soon as it happens. So there’s no need for me to do that anymore. And the truth is, I really don’t have opinions worth sharing about everything that happens out there, so without the news element, I found myself with less and less content to post. Given all of that, I am happy to be trying something new that, once again, no one else that I know of in California journalism is doing. I really think the future of newspaper opinion pages has to be interactive, giving readers the benefit of our expertise, our institutional knowledge, and our access to newsmakers while also inviting other sources and readers to share our space. I think this project is just going to be the first of many that we try to see how we can make that happen. And yes, I will continue to write at least one column a week on Wednesdays, plus the Sunday centerpiece when I don’t solicit it from another source.
FR: Dan, I know that I speak for thousands of our readers who have clicked through to your columns from the FlashReport — we wish you good look on your endeavor. I know that I will be checking out The Conversation on Sunday’s — and we’ll also try to figure out the best way to link to it for the ease of site visitors.
Thanks for spending some time with us — and for embarking on this new endeavor that is truly needed — a place online where truly open discussions can take place, and where all ideas are welcome. Good luck!
Check out Dan’s latest project, The Conversation, here.
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