Thank you to our readers from the Juice Team

Who would have believed it. Less than seven years ago Art Pedroza had a vision. Create an alternative to local print media called the Orange Juice blog where his team of volunteer writers could post fast breaking news stories. Due to print media space limitations he realized that anyone wishing to have Letters to the Editor published at the Register and LA Times is very limited.

With that realization he would create a blog in which readers from around the country could weigh in anonymously, if desired, with their thoughts on our coverage of a broad spectrum of local to international issues whether or not they agreed with the OJ writers.

Blogs have taken “bulletin boards” and “chat rooms” to a new level. In fact, seeing their circulation crashing almost every newspaper now offers blog reports of their stories on the Internet to keep up with the speed of blogger posts.

It was not that long ago that we reported our having exceeded 6,000 posts. However, this latest milestone, exceeding 60,000 post comments, is attributed directly to reader participation. Readers who have taken the time to share their opinions thereby creating a lively debate for anyone with access to a computer.

While we may disagree with you, for the most part every reader comment has been accepted and added to the stories found on the Orange Juice blog. Unlike traditional beat reporters, you can challenge our posts where we have an obligation to respond, as painful as that may be at times. This is your forum.

Whenever Art writes about our blog ranking or blog rating it is important to acknowledge that any awards that we may receive would not be possible without your participation. As I often will state: There is no “i” in teamwork.

Our ongoing task is to continue raising the bar as we look to provide a mix of serious policy issues, election candidate reviews and public service announcements.

On behalf of Founder/Editor Art Pedroza and the entire Juice Family, be it those who were here in the early years to the newest members, thank you for being part of this latest milestone achievement.

Thank you!
Note: The 60,000 th comment is ironic. It comes from Colin Brake attacking me but that goes with the territory

About Larry Gilbert