More on the San Diego News Network

There was only just so much stuff that I could fit in my 1,300 words on the San Diego News Network in this week’s issue. Here’s an assortment of data from my notes that may be of interest.

• Mark Davis, who now runs SignOnSanDiego.com, said this when I asked him about Ron James losing his job at SignOn:

Although not necessarily related to anyone’s departure, last year we recognized that the state of SignOn’s infrastructure had gone unaddressed for too long. As a result, we stopped bolting on guides, sections, and products based on whims, and began to implement a content management system that will provide the base for future site changes. In many ways it was a painful process, but it had been ignored too long. Now, with that foundation in place, we can begin making changes to SignOn’s user experience. We’re becoming much more transparent and open to the Web than we were before.

• There is a precedent for SDNN’s media sharing model, out in Minnesota. The Twin Cities Daily Planet has dozens of ethnic and community dailies as media partners, plus they do some of their own reporting. Unlike SDNN,  TC Daily Planet is a non-profit with foundation support.

• Here’s the full list of SDNN’s full-time editorial staff, as provided to me by Associate Publisher Barbara Bry:

• Ron James, Publisher/Executive Editor
• William Yelles, Managing Editor
• Eric Yates, Deputy Managing Editor
• Helen Chang, Business Editor
• Erin Glass, Lifestyle Editor
• Jason Owens, Sports Editor
• Hoa Quach, Political Editor
• Chris Nixon, Senior Content Producer
• Steven Bartholow, Graphic Designer/Multimedia/Content Producer
• Robin Ruhwedel, Director of Operations/Training/Content Producer

In addition,  to the contributors I listed in the story, PR maven Jan Reigler will be writing a media blog that will run roughly one post a week, and Laura Walcher, who also works in PR, will be writing a weekly column called “Loose Change”.

• A number of the contributors haven’t finalized their deals. Reigler told me she hasn’t signed anything with SDNN yet, and political analyst Pat Flannery said he’s working “on a handshake deal” though he expects they’ll get him something more formal in the future.

• Barbara Bry was a business journalist for both the Sacramento Bee and the Los Angeles Times before becoming an entrepreneuer. In 2005 she was the founding editor of voiceofsandiego.org. Bry stayed in that jobs for about a year, and her successor lasted only a couple of months before the current leadership team of CEO Scott Lewis and Editor Andrew Donohue took over.