Working with the 'competition'

It's a message I keep repeating: I am NOT trying to compete with Svalbardposten.

They do too good a job and I can't possibly pretend to be a "paper of record," since my Norwegian and knowledge of Svalbard are both in their infancy stages. Indeed, I'm trying to cooperate with them as much as possible, something that would no doubt make many "real" alternative newspaper editors cringe. For that reason, I've made a change that limits the amount of English-translated content from their site you can access here.

The "Headlines From Svalbardposten" section originally contained links in each headline that would direct you to the full article at their site, using Google Translate to display it in English. While the wording and grammar were hardly perfect, it was generally enough to understand the gist of the story. But the quirky and/or incorrect wording could result in inadvertently embarrassing phrases that were less than flattering to the newspaper. Google's translation of Solfestuka, for example, is "hellfest." This obviously was not something Svalbardposten wanted, especially given the serious nature of many stories such as fatal snowmobile accidents.

I am continuing to provide the headlines and short summaries - translated by actual humans- with their permission, but with all translation links removed. Anybody can post such links without permission (witness the huge number of blogs, including many prominent ones like Drudge, that are little or nothing but posts from other newspapers), but doing it in a way they approve of is one of the ways I'm trying to avoid stepping on their toes.

You can still link to the paper's main site in Norwegian and those wishing to translate can always use Google Translate on their own, but hopefully with the full knowledge of how imprecise it can be.

By the way, if anyone thinks my "don't make waves" approach to operational stuff is how I generally function as a journalist, no such luck. Some of the things I write will bother people because that's what happens with every newspaper on the planet. If it happens with an article that's fair and accurate, I'll defend it and accept any bad feelings. If there's a mistake, I'll correct it and offer my profuse apologies.

The (in)famous first post

In keeping with the spirit of most blogs, these iconic first words are nothing but meaningless drivel.

My internal newsman wants to rip that sentence apart for a variety of writing sins but, as with everything here, it's meant to do a quick-and-dirty job of conveying whatever behind-the-scenes workings and random thoughts I might have that aren't worthy of the "real" publication.

Obviously everything is in a partially constructed state and still will be for a couple more weeks until I get an idea of how much demand there might be for this newspaper (stretch as it is right now to call it that) and how much quality copy I can produce. I don't intend to do everything by myself forever, but until I have something credible in place it's tough to ask others to devote time to it.

The March 17 issue came out two days late partially due to a cold that kept the entire staff (cough) grounded, although that's an improvement over the three-day delay of our premier issue. The next issue on March 31 will be another "mini" four-pager, but at least getting it out on time can be called another step forward.

The plan is to grow slowly, hopefully as soon as I can find a printer who will do an affordable job. These mini editions are costing me 8 kr. ($1.25) each, hence the limited size and distribution. I can keep doing this for a while, but it'd be nice to find some advertisers – I'm hoping to get some online unless some locals actually want to pay me – to help make a better product feasible.

Doing that means getting the Web site fully functional, since there's a great deal of content there not featured in print. Many of the links are still dead, but more are being activated daily so be patient and keep trying.

Right now I'm distributing the print editions at The University Centre In Svalbard (they're by the entrance), at the Radisson SAS Polar Hotel, Fruene and Busen. If you can't find any and want a copy (or, bless you, want to put some out for others) drop me an e-mail.