This March marks three years of Rock City Times, and a lot has changed in those three years. What has not changed much however is the format of Rock City Times.
When we started the only known similar publications in North America were the Onion and the Borowitz report, and it is easy to see the influence both had on the writing style for RCT. I decided to focus mostly local in our satire coverage, something no one else has done. Now there are hundreds of sites that poorly use the tag of satire to write articles aimed at deception. It has ruined the art of satire and turned many off to the format in the process.
I still believe there a strong need for humor in our community. I have written about it before. Beginning next week, we will start providing a different type of humor. We will look at real and often funny news stories and provide commentary. This format works well for many areas like the Daily Show, SNL’s Weekend Update, and other late night formats.
This is in part by reader demand. Every week we get dozens of you who send in news items recommending that we do something with them. The problem is with the current format there is little room to cover an existing story unless a brand new angle can be made. This allows us to do that and do it better.
It does, however, mean some sacrifices. Another reason I started RCT was to use this as a means to help promote small businesses when possible, often including them into the stories in a positive way to draw attention to an otherwise under the radar local business. That will not fit. Thankfully as a continuation from that we have built the Rock City Eats (focusing on small restaurants) and Rock City Life (local artists, musicians, and makers) brands.
Rock City Life in this serves as an overarching brand between Rock City Times and Rock City Eats. To ease in this transition, and to minimize the confusion, the new format Rock City Times articles will appear under Rock City Life’s domain. Satire articles will stay, for now, under RockCityTimes.com for now until the transition is complete.
This will be an evolving format, don’t hesitate to give us feedback (you all never do)