The Locals are restless...

BendBlogger Jake is all up in the Bulletin's face:

And the first thing I'm going to hear back from the authority figures is that "We don't want to lose print subscribers." I understand that, and I wouldn't want to, either, but thanks to the efforts of folks like Barney at Bend.com, you probably already have. Because they are providing news online in a timely manner while to get any news from you guys folks have to wait until the next-days edition, which contains just what you could fit in the 12-inch hole you were given. Granted, Barney is long-winded, and he knows it, but I'm reading news there far before I'm reading it in your print edition, and certainly long before your online edition.

And because of the current state of the Bulletin's Web site, you're probably losing print subscribers/readers because of it.

And really, if you're going to lose anybody from the print edition, it'll be the critical 18-34 year-old-age group that is getting all their news online anyway, and do you want them to go to your Web site -- one that they'll probably leave when they can't find what they want -- or would you rather they get their news elsewhere? I thought so.

Jake speaks the truth. The Bulletin's website pretty much sucks. The Bulletin itself has sucked for far longer. Since I get 95% of a my information from more liberal sources anyway, Bend's Local Paper long ago lost any relevance on Planet Logjam. To be honest I really don't spend a lot of time at Bend.com either, tho it's the better of the two sites.

Politics in Bend still leans (and by that I mean overwhelmingly) towards Conservative, but in it's wake has grown a pretty fair liberal community too. I found this out when I got involved in Central Oregon for Dean over the winter. Manymany treacherous curs here, so there's hope. Any self-respecting lefty reads The Source anyway, even with all those gd ads.