A dozen years is a long time. It’s 4,380 days and more than 105,120 hours. I wonder how many of those hours I’ve spent on this site.
Do you notice that I call it a “site” now. Twelve years after it launched, I don’t even call it a “blog” anymore. Blogs are much less trendy now. I’m not sure students would even visit if I called it a “blog.”
Times are a changin’ here at Prof KRG. Visits are still strong and level, but I don’t spend the time and attention on the site that I used to. I still love helping you through writing here. It’s time to delve back in and do more of that again. I’m lucky lately if I can post here three times a week. I need to refocus my efforts and rekindle my passion. Maybe it’s time for a redesign?
I launched this site while I was attending the annual National College Media Convention in St. Louis. A session Joe Gisondi presented at the conference inspired me to launch the original version of this blog that night from my hotel room.
My idea at the time was to help my students and those like them, so I figured out basic WordPress and banged out what I thought was a post (more like a couple of paragraphs) that everyone attending the conference or anyone studying journalism would relate to, then I waited. And waited. And then waited some more.
Imagine my surprise when people didn’t just flock to my blog. I mean, I put it on the internet, people! I’m pretty sure that original post got maybe a handful of views. One of them probably was my Mom.
This site has come a long way since then. I know there was at least one year, maybe two, when I posted every day.
The site started as and remains a practical resource for student journalists. But the mission is about the only thing about this site that’s remained constant for more than a decade.
Since the launch this site has switched platforms, been redesigned several times, caused controversy, and, of course, served as a resource for hundreds of thousands of journalists and media advisers. It has given me headaches and heartaches, and made me wonder more times than I care to admit why I even bothered. Every one of those times, just when I was about to quit, you said it. One of you would stop me randomly or email me right on cue to tell me how much you love and appreciate this site.
You motivated me for almost 12 years to continue pouring my mind, heart, time, and energy into this site. We have learned and grown together, with this site progressing along with us. I hope we can continue to do so.
As always, thank you for reading.
Leave a Reply