By Andy Hachadorian

Eight years ago, or so I am told, there was a conversation between me (the editor of the Daily Local News at the time) and a rather quiet gentleman by the name of Ken Knickerbocker.

Knickerbocker was one of our original bloggers in a project I called “Blogtown”. Blogtown was a collection of local writers who were hoping to ride the wave of blogging which at that time was “the thing to do”. The dream was to build up followers and parlay that into some money-making career.

Blogging, however, required persistence, dedication and the willingness to exert effort without much (if any) financial reward.

Blogtown had its core of writers – including Knickerbocker – who were willing to take the plunge. We met every week or so to discuss our strategy, topics, problems, etc.

The concept – originally poo-pooed by newspaper management – was to offer readers content that we as newspaper folks couldn’t produce. We had experts in health and fitness, fashion, food and even pets.

The traffic growth was slow but steady and some of the core bloggers even turned the project into a career – or at least into a profitable side gig.

One of the few with real vision was Knickerbocker. I recall being impressed with his ability to see years down the road. He took his core ideas and had a plan on how to expand them into a product that people would read and value.

That vision has paid off.

With the slow (or not so slow in some cases) deaths of local news, his VISTA Today product stands out as a light at the end of the tunnel for both local news coverage and local ownership. If you doubt the importance of either one of those, read this piece in The American Prospect — http://prospect.org/article/saving-free-press-private-equity.

VISTA Today could and should be a model for those local people with news vision and the understanding of the need for both local watchdogs and local promotion of people and businesses.

The Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry (CCCBI) understands that and has awarded VISTA Today its Small Business of the Year Award.

VISTA Today is billed as an online journal that celebrates Chester County’s quality of place and economic health by publishing curated and original stories on the county’s assets: its commercial, cultural, and community news and events.

Its existence should at the very least give people hope that local news and coverage isn’t completely dead. As much as the giant corporations want to suck the life out of local newspapers, there is some hope that people won’t just let the idea of local news coverage die.

In The American Prospect piece it speaks about the reemergence of local ownership, of local business groups buying back the shells of its greatest local newspapers in an effort to pump new blood and new life into them.

In the current political climate they recognize that it’s critical – even imperative – that citizens not lose their local news voice forever.

The CCCBI choice of VISTA Today was a good one. It sends a clear message that newspapers, news sites and local coverage of people, places and things is as important now as it ever was.

Although I removed myself from the news business nearly two years ago – I couldn’t stand by and watch the vicious and calculating demise of newspapers – I still have a place in my heart for people like Ken Knickerbocker and efforts like VISTA Today.

Congratulations to both. And my hope and dream is that there are others like Ken who will emulate his efforts and even challenge him and keep him on his toes. That spirit is what drove people like Ken – and me – to get up every day with a dream inside yearning to see it in print – or on a computer screen.

Andy Hachadorian is a longtime newspaperman and former editor of the Daily Local News in West Chester. He currently is the manager of digital marketing and media for Cutanea Life Sciences, a Chester County-based pharmaceutical.

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