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When I formed LkldNow in 2015, I became a reporter again after 38 years as an editor.
At first, it felt like it was taking me longer to write articles than when I was a fresh-out-of-college rookie in the mid-1970s. I thought it was because I was re-learning the craft — and that might have been true.
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There’s no place in Florida to adequately train for a bicycle ride up a long mountain trail like the spectacular climb to the Hai Van Pass in Vietnam. The ride takes you up 1,627 feet from nearly sea level, through a lush forest, to a windy overlook with photo-inspiring views of the South China Sea. The abandoned bunkers at the pass are sober reminders that French and then American soldiers fought there in the mid 20th Century.
I’ve felt a bit like a proud parent as I’ve watched more businesses and organizations in Lakeland include the abbreviation Lkld in their names and online identities.
LkldNow, the news website I founded, wasn’t the first; I believe LkldTV gets that honor. But I was there when some early Twitter adopters decided more than eight years ago to formalize use of #lkld to identify posts about Lakeland.
Somebody posed the right question the other day when I asked on Facebook for reactions to the new design of The Ledger’s print edition: Why did they do it?
For a week until everybody got sick of it, there was a Facebook/Twitter meme: List 10 concerts you had seen and let your followers guess which one was a lie. Here’s my variation: the 10 concerts I considered going to but couldn’t or didn’t — and I’m still kicking myself:
It’s been a busy month in Lakeland, Florida. I finally launched lkldnow.com – mobile news to connect you to Lakeland.
Reaction has been great. I had my best day ever yesterday, driven by a story I broke about a $13 million plan to buy and renovate Lakeland Cash Feed into a much larger home for Catapult.
A screenshot from the real estate listing.
The Ledger’s headquarters building in downtown Lakeland is up for sale, as is its office housing The News Chief in Winter Haven.
It’s been 35 years, but I have vivid memories of the morning of May 9, 1980. I left home for my job as city editor of The Tampa Times during a blinding rain. Fearing flooding on my usual scenic route of Bayshore Boulevard, I took the higher-ground Crosstown Expressway instead.
As I approached the door of the newspaper building around 8 a.m., the early-morning copy editing crew was leaving; they had put out the first street-sales edition of the afternoon newspaper and were heading for breakfast before diving into the home edition.
In Lakeland, the revolution might not be televised, but it will play out in social media.
There’s a push to replace the city’s council-manager form of government with a strong mayor system, and the people promoting it are using Facebook as a listening post to get feedback before they even offer a formal proposal.
I'm a digital journalist and recovering newspaper guy who lives in Lakeland, Fla. more...© 2023 Barry I. Friedman
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