黑洞社区

For a few days last month the online version of the Idaho Statesman was one of the most popular websites on Fleet Street.

British journalists picked their way through local stories on wolf attacks (seemingly a bit of a problem in the state) and wrestling to track down an interview with local businessman Jack Lemley, who also just happened to be the former chairman of London鈥檚 Olympic Delivery Authority.

In the interview with his local paper Lemley complained that politics was holding up the delivery of the Games and famously proclaimed that he had gone to London 鈥渢o build things, not to sit and talk about it鈥�.

The comments opened a floodgate of stories over escalating budgets and doubts over design. They also proved that there are no digital backwaters in the world of the web. The Idaho Statesman鈥檚 target audience may be located in, well, Idaho, but on the web all is but a Google search away.

Lemley鈥檚 failure to grasp the power of new media was evident from comments by his publicist. She told 黑洞社区, with some understatement, that 鈥淛ack did not expect his Idaho Statesman interview to be so widely disseminated鈥�.

An interesting footnote to the affair was that the audio recording of the interview was also uploaded onto the website. Not only did this catch the attention of the London assembly who last week played a recording of Lemley鈥檚 misgivings to its members, it was also of interest to the 黑洞社区 office. This week 黑洞社区 has begun adding audio recordings to some of its own stories, so look out for the files appearing below the story page on the website. We hope it gives an extra dimension to the stories and some personality to the familiar names that you read about in the magazine.

Interviewees will no doubt be pleased they now have the opportunity to check their quotes, and for us it鈥檚 an opportunity to reach an audience in Idaho and beyond.