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Blog Entry 10 of 69 If you think it's news, it is.

Notes, observations, commentary, news and photos from our communities. I'm the general manager for the YourHub.com operation, the citizen journalism site for the Ventura County Star. And I'm glad you are here, too. My wife Joanna and I live in Simi Valley with our two sons, Matt and Joey. We've been in Ventura County for more than two decades and feel privileged to be here. Please comment on this blog and post your news and musings, too. See you around the county!

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Everything moves faster here

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Contributed by: Michael Hoffman on 4/18/2007

Everything moves faster on the Internet. Last week, radio host Don Imus found that out the hard way. Barely a week after he made disparaging comments regarding members of a women's college basketball team, Imus found himself out of a job.

A recent story in the Wall Street Journal chronicled how it happened. It started with the Internet. A member of Media Matters in America was taping the radio show's simulcast on the cable channel MSNBC when Imus made his remark. Media Matters makes a practice of listening to conservative talk show hosts and has been monitoring Imus because many of his political guests fit that category. The Media Matters staffer clipped the remark, posted it on the group's website and sent out an email about it to news organizations across the country.

About 36 hours later, an NBC new executive was pulled out of a meeting. He was told that complaints had been coming in about the comment that had been posted on the Media Matters site. A week later, after several major companies pulled their advertisements, Imus was fired.

A decade ago, nothing would have moved this quickly. A media advocacy group might have contacted a handful of newspapers via fax or telephone. The offensive clip would have remained relatively obscure. The controversy would have blown over. That's the world that Imus thought he still lived in, rather than the world where the Internet pushes information out at the speed of light.

Members of the YourHub.com team spoke about Imus Tuesday in Simi Valley during our YourHub.com 101 meeting. Several people from the community came out to hear about how best to use this new community journalism website. Check them out in the picture that accompanies this blog.

The people you see there are part of the changes that the Internet is making in our communities, both on a local and on a national basis. They understand that information moves rapidly today, in a vast part, because of the Internet's attributes. They also know that the Internet has given them greater opportunities to shape the messages that they want to present to the public.

And just like on the rest of the Internet, the material on YourHub.com shifts rapidly. The numbers of stories that you and your neighbors have shared with the community are increasing every week.

Unike Imus, however, the staff at YourHub.com understands the changes that the Internet has wrought. We want to make these new capabilities work for you, even when the permutations seem to come at lightening speed.

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