I hate Hearne's blog. But I want to help!!!

The new blog of Hearne Christopher Jr. was met with a nice announcement from Bottomline Communications but almost no fanfare.

In fact, I think the local blogosphere gave Hearne's bloggy offering a big "who cares" and didn't even bother to stop by and leave a nasty comment.

Sadly, I think Hearne is behind the times on his approach to blogging and if he really wanted to prove his KC Celeb Status with little effort he would have just launched a slightly updated solo blog along with a Twitter account . . . Besides, all blogs will be useless compared to Twitter in two months.

Nevertheless, despite the vast fortunes of the Christopher Family and all those years of hard work by Hearne a The Star . . . He's still a blog newbie and I want to help him in much the same way I try and link as many other local bloggers as I can.

Here are my Top Suggestions for KC Confidential:

Defending Gloria Squitiro? Seriously? The blogosphere is for unbridled meanness not standing up for barefoot women running Kansas City without a vote. Breaking the mold is one thing . . . But a blog doesn't have the same gravitas as the "paper-of-record" so sticking up for the Mayor's wife just makes Hearne look like a shill.

Peregrine Honig is the second worst artist in Kansas City (next to STRETCH) and her writing and personal observations are even worse than that . . . Talking to a street sign in the Crossroads would garner more information. And while I think her blonde, busty business partner is incredibly hot . . . I'm pretty sure picking Peregrine as part of this bloggy team was simply a cynical decision to capture the young lady demographic that The Star's INK mag is also going after . . . Only, with less pay, of course.

WAY TOO MANY WHITE PEOPLE . . . The mainstream media reinforces SUPREMACY quite a bit but the blogs that I've seen really succeed in Kansas City come from voices that would have been ignored by the corporate information structure. From the jail house and wrong side of the tracks observations of the Midtown Miscreant to RDM's no holds barred observations on race in America. Like it or not, BLOGGING IS THE ALTERNATIVE TO MAINSTREAM NEWS COVERAGE but Hearne is simply mimicking his old Star style that people can still get . . . From The Star. Covering just a couple of minority issues might provide a perspective that Hearne never offered at the house of his former employer.

Like this one, his posts are too long.

Can Hearne succeed without poaching the scoops of his colleagues? Widely known fact: Just about every reporter at The Star hated Hearne. Newsroom gossip travels fast and even I've managed to glean a few crumbs from the loud talk that newsies try to keep to themselves. A great many newsies say that Hearne made a career out of poaching the stories other people were working before they had a chance to make them public . . . While I think that's a wonderful tactic . . . Being outside The Star building limits his options on that front.

The Lazarus Group owns his blog according to a quick whois search . . . I'm not sure if that's just a site design thing or if they actually OWN the domain (and thereby the content) . . . I hope Hearne knows for sure before he starts putting out more posts. Information wants to be free . . . But not all companies share the same sentiment.

It's CLEAR Hearne didn't really bother to learn the rules of blogging . . . Sponsored content posts like the kind his blog features for Birdies and Bazooka's will kill his page rank if Google ever catches on . . . Just a bit of advice, while the top brass say that blogs have no ethics (they don't) there are rules of this thing we call blogging and abiding by them only benefits newbies like Hearne.

Needless to say . . . I'm hoping for the best for Hearne and I don't want to see him fall flat on his face the way he did at that bar last year . . . What mainstream media people always fail to understand is that one popular blog benefits ALL BLOGS and believe it or not, Hearne's venture could be a good thing for other bloggers who are doing their own kind of writing about Kansas City.