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Holtz Communications + Technology

Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Another citizen journalism effort launched

Self-described “recovering journalist” Mark Potts and his partner, Susan DeFife, are launching Backfence.com, another entry in the growing open-source journalism field. According to Potts, interviewed for a Washington Post article, major media newspapers are unable to get to the “hyper-local” news that will make up the content of Backfence.com. ““A housewife or hardware store owner can have something to contribute, that’s important to them, that would be way under the radar of what we as journalists think is important,” Potts says in the Post article. “It’s the kind of thing you talk about at cocktail parties and barbecues.”

The site will serve two Fairfax County towns, McLean and Reston, beginning in early 2005. If it works, the pair will expand into 16 other metropolitan areas over the next three years, with 10 town-size sites in each market.

The preliminary Web site offers a simple explanation and some background on Potts and DeFife.

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