Interesting day at the office with the unveiling of our NEW News report on Chicago online news.

I wished I was interviewing Phil Rosenthal instead of the other way around this afternoon, since he came up with the best soundbite so far:”It’s about the value, not the cost of local news.” Wish he’d said that in his column! ah, well.

It was nice to get a call from Alexander Russo of the District 299 blog covering Chicago Public Schools. It’s now appearing at Chicago Now and includes a brief mention of the report (good move, Tribune!)

Just a quick wrap up of other reactions:

The U in community — Megan Garber’s quick take at Columbia Journalism Review

ChicagoSphere (on Chicago Now, the Chicago Tribune’s newest digital news initiative)–Mike Doyle writes:

the real news is the strong presence of local bloggers in the top-20 [list in the report]. As neighborhood coverage continues to dwindle in traditional media, hyperlocal news sites and niche interest blogs seem to be taking up some of the slack. Not all of it, and not in a comprehensive manner, but enough for modest, one-person websites and unpaid groups of bloggers with sharp, community-oriented focuses to develop strong followings and become opinion leaders in their areas of interest. They may or not be the journalists of tomorrow, but if anyone’s looking for tomorrow’s top columnists, bloggers like these are the ones to watch, folks.

The report also showed up on the Romenesko blog, and was mentioned a few other places if you’d like to get a sense of the tone of comments about it:

Illinois Review mentioned it’s on the list; so did The Urbanophile. Interestingly, Urbanophile’s author says, and this may be the best react yet:

Honestly, I don’t consider myself a “news” site at all. I’m not a journalist by training or avocation, but rather a passionate advocate for America’s cities and, as you can no doubt tell, one of America’s top urban strategic thinkers. Nevertheless, I am honored to be included in the Chicago Community Trust’s list of top sites. And I’m extremely proud of the innovation in the online world coming out of the Midwest and Chicago of which I’m privileged to be a part.

Mike Doyle also mentioned the report on his personal site, Chicago Carless

Sally Duros, an author of one of the articles in the report, has been blogging about the future of news at Huffington Post Chicago

Christopher Brinckerhoff, a Workshop intern over the past year, has been blogging about the report and the Making Media Connections conference at his blog (thanks, Chris)!

It showed up on Windy Citizen late in the evening…

Steve Rhodes of Beachwood Reporter fame and I had a several email exchanges about the study. He raised a substantive criticism: that relying on self-reported data such as monthly visitors tends to cast some doubt on the results–since nothing but their own sense of ethics forced folks to tell us the truth. It’s a point worth some consideration–although we did balance self-reported information with some 3rd party info and some qualitative assessments by Workshop staff.