http://www.dullessouthonline.c.....rhood.html

However, the entire DC-area is somewhat transitory in nature, with lots of people livings in these suburbs but feeling more connected to DC itself or the places they moved from originally. Having a site like this work in Loudoun seems a lot harder than building something in Lawrence, KS.

Thanks for the comment. I updated the story to note your objection to the outsider characterization. I was paraphrasing the Journal article in my entry and made that note based on this, and a few other quotes, that appeared in the article:

“But LoudounExtra.com remains little more than a skeleton of the site its architects pledged to build. One reason: the team of outsiders didn’t do enough to familiarize itself with Loudoun County or engage its 270,000 residents.”

I’ve worked with Rob Curley for eight years and was on his team at washingtonpost.com/LoudounExtra.com. I think Rob would agree that more could have been done to get the word out about the site. As Rob told the WSJ, he probably wishes he would have spoken to any community group that would have listened to him discuss the site.

Providing links to LoudounExtra.com from washingtonpost.com will help, too. There’s no doubt: We should have done more to get the word out.

But it wouldn’t be accurate to say that the journalists involved are “outsiders” and don’t understand the county. The editors and reporters at the Loudoun County bureau of The Washington Post have played an important role since the site’s inception. Post reporters who were covering the ins and outs of Loudoun County long before Rob’s team came into the picture are still contributing to the site on a daily basis.

Members of Rob’s team, myself included, immersed themselves into Loudoun County months before the site launched. We logged thousands of miles gathering content from all corners of the county and met with countless people in Loudoun beginning six or seven months before the launch. Once the site launched, the online staff continued covering stories with text and multimedia that complemented stories originating from the print staff. This offered readers a great deal of additional coverage of Loudoun that wasn’t available in the Post or on washingtonpost.com.

From Day One there was constant coordination between the Loudoun bureau journalists who have covered Loudoun for years and the online staff that lived and breathed Loudoun on a daily basis months before the public ever saw LoudounExtra.com. While there were issues related to how we should tell the public about the site, I don’t think that takes anything away from the journalism.

Tim