Marla Jo Fisher, the bargain-hunting “Deals Diva” columnist and blogger for the Orange County Register, reveals something interesting in her most recent post.
The paper’s new owners have invested a lot of money lately in the print product, she writes, such as adding a business editor, a daily business section and a full-time restaurant reviewer.
As a result, they have decided that most of us should devote our time to the print newspaper, and either reduce or eliminate the effort we are making to work on blogs like this one.
…Some of you may know that I’m already writing a Sunday deals column each Sunday for the local section of the Register. I will continue to write that. However, I will not be continuing to update this blog. (frowny face here)
She’ll continue to connect with readers via her Facebook page, she says. In the meantime, she’s been promoted to a full-time columnist position for the features section. She’ll write a “Frumpy Mom” column for Mondays, a home-and-garden column for Saturdays and she’ll continue her “Deals Diva” column for Sundays.
Find Marla Jo’s “goodbye” blog post here.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the amazing investment the OCR has made in high school sports coverage.
I don’t have to tell you, this is 180 degrees opposite of what we’re seeing in the rest of the industry, most notably Digital First — which is going, y’know, digital first — and Advance Publications, which has beefed up its web sites and has begun taking its print products down to just three times a week.
Even more amazing — or, perhaps, puzzling — online news guru Rob Curley has been working at the Orange County Register since June. Just last month, Curley — who’s been uncharacteristically low-profile for the past year or two — gave an address to student journalists at the University of Oklahoma. Read more about that here.
Thanks to Southern California-based designer Autumn Heep for the tip.
