Down at the Conjunction

As the media realms of print, broadcast and online continue to move toward some kind of conjunction, the role of the blog, or weblog, increases in importance. And not just because everybody's got one--even me--but because the immediacy and informality of the form, when it is well employed, has both news value and audience appeal. In this week's regional news we used as a source for the story on Canadian casualties in Afghanistan the blog of Alan McLeod in Kingston, ON. Today's Photo of the Day comes from the blog of Prairie Summer, a North Country native serving for a year as an international education volunteer. And beginning today, we are delighted to introduce you to Sharie Derrickson, a humor and feature writer living in Cape Vincent. The inaugural entry in her new NCPR Blog, Quirks, is a cautionary tale that illuminates new uses for pork rinds and a yo-yo.