Welcome to the redesigned CarolinaJournal.com. We’ve added new features and expanded some old favorites. It’s part of our plans to make Carolina Journal a more dynamic, timely, and hard-hitting multimedia source — and an even stronger complement to our print edition.
Here are some highlights:
• More CJ Exclusives: Our staff writers and freelancers cover as many of the suspicious dealings in North Carolina government as we can. But there’s only so much you can publish in a 28-page monthly tabloid. So we’re taking a bigger whack at waste, corruption, and taxpayer abuse by posting as many as three fresh exclusives daily, rather than one — and updating the site several times a day. The new design gives us the ability to highlight more of our original reporting and investigative journalism. And produce more of it. We’ll also be able to update stories as circumstances change, and when developments move faster than our print schedule allows.
We’ve also placed a link to our Exclusives Series on the main page, so you can track all our reporting on the scandals involving former Gov. Mike Easley, former House Speaker Jim Black, legislative slush funds, and other continuing issues.
• CarolinaJournal.tv. We launched this new Web channel earlier this year. But now you will be able to click directly from our home page to CJTV. Go here to view videos of events sponsored by the John Locke Foundation, newsmaker interviews, appearances by CJ and JLF staff on other media outlets, and other events of interest to our readers and supporters. We also plan to produce newsmagazine-style video essays based on stories from Carolina Journal. You’ll see them here first.
• CJ Ticker. Consider this a one-stop headline service and daybook on North Carolina politics and policy. Here you’ll find links to news stories, commentary pieces, and policy reports, along with notices of public meetings and other events. You’ll want to check the ticker regularly.
For your entertainment, we’re also adding editorial cartoons from some of the nation’s wittiest and most perceptive visual commentators.
The information that appeared on CJ’s former home page is still there — including John Hood’s Daily Journals, links to the John Locke Foundation’s regional blogs, and our collection of headlines from news sources across North Carolina. You can also use the dropdown menus to find other resources that were once on the home page, including research from the John Locke Foundation, news and opinion Web sites, blogs from JLF and sister organizations, and additional information about CJ-sponsored events.
CJ Publisher Jon Ham, Managing Editor Rick Henderson, and Associate Editors Mitch Kokai and Michael Lowrey will serve as traffic cops for the new CJ Online. As always, we appreciate your feedback on how the site is working, and how we might improve it to serve you better.
Thanks for taking us for a spin.