One of the frustrations of being an arts and entertainment writer here in Lexington is we are getting more things to cover, but we aren't getting more space to cover them. No, this isn't going to be a whiny 
post about being part of a dying industry, because I don't believe that's the case.
Gary Pruitt, the president and CEO of the McClatchy Company, the Lexington Herald- Leader's parent company, is dead on when he says that daily newspapers are in a better position than any other media outlet to take advantage of the Internet, and I'm not quoting him just because I have a performance review coming up. He is exactly right, if the papers do it right.
LexGo, is an example of doing it right.
LexGo is our new arts and entertainment website which launches today. It is the result of months, probably a year, of work by the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com's entertainment news and online departments. I can crow about it because very little of what makes it great has to do with me, though I am certainly committed to being part of making LexGo Central Kentucky's most comprehensive and useful outlet for information about arts and entertainment.
Essentially, that's the idea behind LexGo.
Before today's launch I had a chance to surf around Lexgo a bit, and there is a lot to find. Like a great movie or play, it works on several levels.
If you have time, there are in-depth articles from local and national writers about the latest in A&E. There is an expanded menu of blogs, including a long-overdue Walter Tunis blog about the area's pop music scene, Harriett Hendren's fashion blog, and ReviewRevue, which is a roundup of critical assessments of arts and literature by our staff and contributing critics. Of course, Jamie Gumbrecht and I are here too. At LexGo, we're also going to be loading up on audio, video and photo content, from our staff and from you.
That's all fun, thought-provoking, etc.
On the more utilitarian level, there's a lot of information, namely the Lexgo calendar. Here's what I love about this calendar: Say it's late in the afternoon, and you decide you want to do something tonight, but you don't know what. Go to the calendar, set the search parameters for when and how far you want to go to do something, and you will find everything you need to know, including ticket information, links and maps. You may discover things you didn't know you might want to do, which is one of the coolest things that can happen. And you will probably be surprised by how much is going on. Let this be the end of griping that there's nothing going on in Lexington.
Basically, you now have a daily arts section. No more waiting for Friday and Sunday. LexGo will constantly update with your best bets for today. For this arts and entertainment journalist, it lifts a lot of frustration. We now have the space we need.
For the grand opening, I have tidied up here at a Copious Notes. After a year and some change of blogging, the Links list in the left-hand column had become a bit unwieldy, so I've restructured it into links by subject, plus a few of my favorite blogs. You'll also find direct links to the latest posts from Jamie, Walter and Harriett and a portal to Kentucky.com's ever expanding universe of blogs.
The right hand column is devoted to content we've generated, including photo albums, audio and video, and we are going to do more of that.
Notice, I have not used the word interactive, but this is all interactive, and your interaction is extremely important. Please let us know what you think and where we can improve by contacting me, our arts and entertainment editor Scott Shive or online editor Deedra Lawhead.
As always, thanks for reading, and have fun with LexGo.
I'm honored to have made your list of favorite blogs! Thank you!
I'm looking forward to seeing how LexGo evolves.
Posted by: Alison | January 11, 2008 at 08:00 PM