Boards
A letter to Sean
Hi Sean! Long-time listener, first-time called here.
I can only begin to image how hard your job must be. The last six months have seen a big shake up for DiS; I’m sure the tip of the iceberg is all us regular readers and posters have been privy to. Giving your readers even a small amount of information regarding the financial, managerial and editorial logistics of running a site such as this deserves to be applauded.
I can’t help but feel that the site is going a bit downhill though (technological hic-ups aside). You always seem to be on the boards asking everyone for ideas on ‘Best Ofs’ ‘Greatest Moments’; asking them to check out Twitter pages and the like. Again, the community involvement is welcomed but I can’t help but see it as a distraction to what people actually want from the site: Album Reviews, Single Reviews, Live Reviews, News and – finally – features.
Man power is obviously an issue but I was always under the assumption that, before recent staffing events, much of the content had always been commissioned – bar a handful of editorial staff on the payroll. If man power is indeed an issue can’t more of the reviews, news etc be commissioned out to external writers looking for the credits on their burgeoning journalist CVs? That could give you the time to focus on the features (kudos on your recent M Ward scoop btw).
DiS was always my one-stop-shop for all things music; now I use a few other sites alongside it – and not just for the universally missed music news.
I guess that’s it really (if only I had a killer closing paragraph). I was going to send this to you as a PM but thought I’d stick it on the boards to see if my sentiments were echoed by the community or not.
Keep up the hard work.
R_D