About

We need news.

Thoroughly reported, crisply written, attractively delivered news. Not just news about our interests, but a mix of stories to bring us up to date on happenings near and far. Every day in America, each of us makes decisions. If those decisions aren’t informed by fact and well-reasoned opinion, we all will suffer.

The purpose of this blog is to help existing newspapers survive and, if they can’t, to help their successors perform as well as the humble daily has for so many years.

As for me, your host: My name is Tammalene Mitman. I began this blog in 2016.  For most of the previous decade, I had worked as an analyst in institutional research for community colleges.  But before that, I spent as much time as possible in news roles or related jobs.

I’ve been an AP secretary; a newspaper reporter, editor, wire editor, managing editor and promotion coordinator; a customer service specialist for one of the first ad-serving networks on the web, a website producer, a freelance copy editor and a freelance AP state election center coordinator.

I was lucky enough to have shared most of those experiences with my husband, Jonathan Kellogg, who was far better at all of it than I ever will be. He died in 2015. He very much wanted to see his beloved newspaper industry succeed. I do, too.