This week, I’m moving my traditional posting place from JesseSteele.com to JesseSteele.PacificDailyTimes.com. This is part of a project I have been working on for over half of a year and was drafting long before that.
Posts and feeds will still stay up-to-date at JesseSteele.com. Subscriptions to The Podcast, The Journal, and The Point will not change and you don’t need to update anything. I’ve done such a clean job in this transition that the only way for you to know about it is for me to tell you. And I want you to know about it…
Pacific Daily Times was created as a solution to a blogging challenge I faced as a writer. About two years ago, I drew a comical cartoon about China and Japan fighting over the Senkaku islets, near Japan. The editor of a large cooperative blog found it and invited me to join his team. I quickly found myself writing stories that were not the typical-critical of China, but had more critical-thinking instead. (I won’t sing China’s praises, but I won’t just mindlessly blast them either. I talked about that earlier today in the podcast, episode 75.)
This posed a problem: I could only write for an “English-speaking audience with an interest in China”. What about situations in America? So, I got to thinking.
“What about Pacific – – – – Something?” I asked myself. I had been writing for a “Daily Mail” website. So, the name “Pacific Daily Times” came quickly. It really was a “Times” site I wanted, rather than a “News” or “Mail”. (It may not seem like a big difference to most people, but for a writer, editor, and publisher, choosing a name like ‘Times’ or ‘News’ can have some important meaning. ‘News’ is about what telling what happens as it happens while ‘Times’ tries to share the ongoing annals of history in the making. Still, not too much a difference for most people, but can have some meaning to those in the Publishing industry.)
I wanted ‘Times’ for this particular project and Pacific was the “common ground”—or “common ocean” as is more literally and figuratively accurate.
I didn’t want the typical run-o-the-mill Business, Sports, Lifestyle, Entertainment, Politics rundown. I wanted a paper that my think-tank friends and mentors would be interested in. Sports and Entertainment weren’t much of it, except where they fit into a larger “Culture” section. And Lifestyle and Health… That’s what every article is about since this journalism seeks to help society rather than to shape public opinion as much of the media tends to become.
So, today, just before running the 75th Podcast where I announced the switch to PDT, I made the connection—that old theme I got in the beta podcast, five years go, needed to go to PDT: Bible, Business, Culture, Politics. So, those are the themes for PDT and they will slowly come down from JesseSteele.com.
As the owner and Editor in Chief of the Times (PDT), I will keep a profile as a peer of all other writers, podcasters, photographers, and other staff. I haven’t fully determined what content will make the full migration to the PDT website and what JesseSteele.com will be used for. Right now, my main social links, ebooks, and bio will stay right where it is. As for the media you want to read—I’m putting that in a place where I have invited many other authors that you will also want to read. The idea of publishing, after all, is that we work together, keep the same things the same, allow our differences to stand out, and share ideas that others genuinely want to receive.