The Sanatoga Post

Managing Editor Joe Zlomek

SANATOGA PA – Items to keep readers up-to-date on what’s happening at The Sanatoga, Limerick, and Pottstown Posts:

Drag us into your Google+ (Plus) Circles

The tech-savviest of Post Publications‘ readers know that Google last month launched its competitive answer to Facebook, the Internet’s most popular social networking site. Google’s new weapon in the social media wars is called Google+ (Plus). It works much like Facebook, in some cases is a little easier to use, and in many cases provides a much cleaner and more graphically appealing interface, experts say.

• The Posts have Google+ pages; find them here.

• And The Posts have had a Facebook page for a couple of years now; find it here.

Because it’s a new kid on the block, so to speak, Google+ is building its user audience by issuing invitations to try the free service through those who already use it. Consequently, The Posts have available 150 invitations for its readers interested in starting their own Google+ pages. We’ll give ‘em away ’til they’re gone, but only one per e-mail address, please. If you want in, send your e-mail address to sanatoga@yahoo.com with the subject line “Google+.”

Once you’re up and running on Google+, we’d be delighted if you would add The Posts to one or more of your Plus Circles. They are groups of other users with whom you share friendship and information. That way we can keep each other better informed.

Take us with you when you go

When The Posts re-tooled their online appearance last November, thanks to some talented software programmers locally and beyond, we gained hundreds of new readers but lost the ability to present stories in a format easily seen on cell phones and other mobile devices. We are happy to report that – for the Sanatoga edition on iPhones, iPads, and Android- or HP WebOS-powered devices – our “gosh-that’s-fun” mobile interface returned in early July.

Simply open your phone’s web browser, type in “sanatogapost.com” as the desired address, and our software will automatically 1) take you to our website, 2) detect that you’re reading on a handheld device, and 3) serve up The Post’s phone-friendly look and feel.

For those of you with phones running other operating systems or reading the Limerick and Pottstown editions, well … we’re still working on them.

A Post milestone (or two) passed

The 4,000th news article produced for the Sanatoga edition was published last Friday (Aug. 5, 2011). The Sanatoga Post archives are so large that Google now serves up a category index for our stories in certain search results.

On the same day, The Limerick Post published article No. 1,153; and The Pottstown Post went live with article No. 1,116.

We thank our still-growing readership, contributors, media partners, advertisers, and community organizations with which we work for their trust in The Post Publications Network and their confidence in our products.

Another milestone just ahead

In two weeks (Aug. 25, 2011), the Sanatoga edition will observe its third anniversary and begin its fourth consecutive year of serving news and information to residents of Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township, the Pottsgrove School District, and their municipal neighbors.

On similar occasions in the past, we’ve announced either new features or anticipated big improvements in what we’re doing or how we do it. Our goal for the coming year is, instead, “refinement.”

Readers tell us, almost daily, what they like about The Posts and also what they think needs fixing. We’ve now got an arm’s-length list of items that must be tweaked to work better and meet new demands. The improvements we hope you’ll notice on our pages during the next 12 months may be smaller in scale, but will pay off in greater usability and reader convenience.

And we’re hitting the road

The Posts have been invited to participate in the national “Block By Block Community News Summit 2011,” being held Sept. 29-Oct. 1 (2011) at Loyola University in Chicago. Block By Block bills itself as a conference at which “online community news entrepreneurs” can pick each others’ brains, trade ideas and learn new skills.

The Posts will continue to publish daily during the three-day period. Managing Editor Joe Zlomek expects to be bursting with enthusiasm when he returns from the Windy City.

Managing Editor Joe Zlomek.

SANATOGA PA – A new online publication – The Main Street Post – that focuses primarily on businesses and business-related activity in and affecting the 25-mile long U.S. Route 422 corridor between King of Prussia PA and Reading PA, was officially opened Thursday (April 22, 2010) by Career Education Media Ventures (CEMV) of Sanatoga PA.

National news networks with which CEMV is affiliated prompted Main Street‘s creation, Managing Editor Joe Zlomek said.

“Our company currently works through three distribution networks to deliver its written, photo, video and database content to readers, viewers and subscribing publishers across the country and the world,” Zlomek said. He noted that stories from CEMV publications appear weekly on the websites of CNN, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. “They, and local readers too, have been asking us to provide more business-oriented coverage, and we’re happy to oblige.”

Main Street “also is a bit of a departure” from CEMV’s other publications, Zlomek added, in that it covers a category of news – business – over a far broader area. “Until now, our company’s Post-branded products have centered on its very successful, intensely local community news coverage. That will continue unchanged, but Main Street opens new doors and new possibilities for content, for advertising, and for distribution across other forms of media as well,” Zlomek said.

The Main Street Post represents the fourth in CEMV’s line of publications. It also publishes:

• The Sanatoga Post, covering Sanatoga PA, Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township, and the Pottsgrove School District;
• The Limerick Post, covering Limerick (PA) Township, Royersford PA and the Spring-Ford School District; and
• The Pottstown Post, covering the borough of Pottstown PA and the Pottstown School District.

Sign up to get The Sanatoga Post delivered free daily by e-mail. Share this article.
See our galleries for photos that appear in The Post. Got news for us? E-mail The Post.

The Sanatoga Post was considered "freshly pressed" on Wednesday.

SANATOGA PA – The Sanatoga Post enjoyed national recognition twice Wednesday (March 3, 2010).

• One of its articles was chosen as among the nine best items published during the day from more than 10 million (yes, million) blogs hosted by WordPress.com; and
• It also was named by a columnist for the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri as a news mini-site considered among the most “promising online news organizations” in the country.

At WordPress, The Post article headlined “26 Percent Of You Will Read This On A Cell Phone” – which reported on a study of mobile news readers conducted by the Pew Research Center – was featured on the blog host’s main web page, along with eight other stories deemed “freshly pressed.” A screen shot of the page appears above; the link to The Post article is in the bottom-left corner.

The competition for WordPress’ promotional attention is stiff. On Wednesday, its editors said, The Post ranked among the best of 301,938 active bloggers; 301,756 new posts; 386,787 comments; and 65,327,759 words published on its platform within a 24-hour span. “The positioning brought thousands of new readers to us,” Managing Editor Joe Zlomek said, and resulted in The Post‘s highest-ever single-day readership.

At the Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI), columnist and 2009-2010 institute fellow Michele McLellan named The Sanatoga, Limerick and Pottstown Post editions in her latest discoveries of online community news leaders. Part of her efforts in identifying and publicizing the list of promising sites, she wrote, was to “learn from them and see if RJI can help them flourish.”

The Posts were categorized in McClellan’s mini-sites, those operated by only one or two people. She is a co-founder of the Frontline Editors Project, and a former editor, writer and ombudsman for The (Riverside CA) Press-Enterprise and The (Portland OR) Oregonian newspapers.

“We’re honored to join the distinguished, and in most cases, much larger news organizations” in McClellan’s list, Zlomek said, “and hope that someday we’ll be equally as large. There’s a lot to live up to in that ‘promising’ designation.”

Sign up to get The Sanatoga Post delivered free daily by e-mail. Share this article.
See our galleries for photos that appear in The Post. Got news for us? E-mail The Post.

WASHINGTON DC – Suggested guidelines for journalists who use social media and blogs as news sources, or to supplement their reporting, were released last week (Feb. 4, 2010) by the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA). The lengthy set of best ethical practices for reporters’ reliance on items like Twitter “tweets” or Facebook “wall posts” are now available online.

The Sanatoga Post, The Limerick Post, and The Pottstown Post all have, on occasion, used Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social media sites as source material for some of their reports. The most recent example is a story all three published Saturday (Feb. 6, 2010), titled “Tweeting Up The Area’s Snowy Weather,” that cited Tweets about weather conditions in Pottstown and surrounding areas.

“We haven’t yet thoroughly read the guidelines, and don’t know what parts, if any, are applicable to The Posts’ reporting,” Managing Editor Joe Zlomek said Sunday (Feb. 7). “But the mere fact that guidelines have been offered by a news group for its members’ consideration is worthy of public attention.”

The Posts are not RTDNA members. Zlomek, however, is a 27-year member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Sign up to get The Sanatoga Post delivered free daily by e-mail.
See our galleries for photos that appear in The Post. Got news for us? E-mail The Post. Share this article.

Joe Zlomek

SANATOGA PA – Readers of The Sanatoga Post, The Limerick Post and The Pottstown Post now have the ability to share articles from all three online publications across any of almost 200 social media sites with just a couple of mouse clicks, Managing Editor Joe Zlomek announced Wednesday (Jan. 27, 2010).

Career Education Media Ventures of Sanatoga, which publishes The Posts, registered its content with AddThis, the nation’s largest social bookmarking and sharing service. Readers who enjoy a specific Post article and want to share it with friends and colleagues need only to click on the text link at the bottom of its page that says:

“Share this article.”

An AddThis graphic will immediately open, allowing readers to indicate where they want articles shared. The list includes Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, almost all blogging platforms, and dozens of other recognized social media sites.

The service is available for all articles published Wednesday or later.

“And a reader deserves credit for the idea,” Zlomek added. Pottsgrove Middle School Principal Dr. William Ziegler, who uses web-based tools extensively to keep in touch with middle school students, parents, and faculty members, requested the sharing feature last week. “It’s a great suggestion, and we thank Dr. Ziegler for making it,” Zlomek said.

Get The Post delivered free daily by e-mail. Got news for us? E-mail The Post.
See our galleries for photos that appear in The Post. Share this article.

POTTSTOWN PA – Improvements that offer greater convenience to readers were added Saturday (Jan. 16, 2010) to The Sanatoga Post and its companion publications, The Limerick (PA) Post and The Pottstown Post.

In the Sanatoga edition, a regularly updated feed of national and international news headlines supplied by Reuters News Service was added to the top-right column of the “Current Headlines In The Post” home page. “This feature was already in use in the Pottstown edition, and we’re responding to recent requests to add it” in Sanatoga, Managing Editor Joe Zlomek said.

The ability to subscribe for e-mail notices about newly published articles was added to the Limerick and Pottstown editions, also in the top-right column of their respective “Current Headlines In The Post” home pages.

“E-mail subscriptions for Limerick and Pottstown are not yet in the form of a single morning delivery that’s been available for more than a year from Sanatoga. We’re still working on that,” Zlomek said. “But what we can offer now to the growing number of readers for the Limerick and Pottstown editions is the opportunity to know when news breaks there.”

All three editions of the Posts are published by Career Education Media Ventures of Sanatoga PA.

Sign up to get The Sanatoga Post delivered free daily by e-mail.
See our galleries for photos that appear in The Post. Got news for us? E-mail The Post.

SANATOGA PA – Articles and photographs produced by Career Education Media Ventures of Sanatoga PA, for publication in The Sanatoga Post and its companion online news services, are now being made available internationally under a distribution agreement with Newstex, a Connecticut-based syndicator of digital content.

Managing Editor Joe Zlomek

Its collaboration with Newstex represents the third syndication of The Post’s content, CEMV Managing Editor Joe Zlomek said. Its news coverage of Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township, the Pottsgrove School District, and surrounding municipalities also is distributed across the Greater Philadelphia area by Fwix, and nationally by Topix. Stories from The Post appear weekly on the websites of CNN, The Washington Post, and other news providers.

“We’re pleased that Newstex will supply our content to an even broader audience,” Zlomek said.

Newstex, founded in 2004, packages and sells the digital content of selected news services, websites, blogs and social media with other current financial and legal data to provide topical, authoritative information to professional users worldwide, such as brokerages, banks, law firms and others.

The Sanatoga Post was launched in August 2008 with the stated mission of providing “information services that have disappeared from other media outlets over several years: specifically, intensely local news coverage similar to that of weekly newspapers, presented on a daily basis.” CEMV later launched The Limerick (PA) Post, which this week observed its first anniversary, and The Pottstown Post.

Sign up to get The Sanatoga Post delivered free daily by e-mail.
See our galleries for photos that appear in The Post. Got news for us? E-mail The Post.

SANATOGA PA – After more than 450 consecutive days of Monday-through-Sunday online distribution, The Sanatoga Post will take a nine-day holiday and temporarily suspend publication between Dec. 19 (2009; Saturday) and Dec. 27 (Sunday), Managing Editor Joe Zlomek has announced.

Publication of The Limerick Post and The Pottstown Post editions also will be suspended for the period.

All three editions will resume publication Dec. 28 (2009; Monday) “as though nothing had happened,” Zlomek said.

During the nine-day period, no new stories or photos will be published on any of The Post websites; the Sanatoga edition’s daily headline e-mail will not be distributed to subscribers; and e-mail sent to The Post‘s Yahoo mailbox will be allowed to collect virtual dust.

All three websites will remain up and running, however, for reader access to previously published stories. A note on the front page of each edition will explain the brief absence.

The Sanatoga Post began publication on Aug. 25, 2008, and started a seven-day publication cycle on Sept. 19, 2008. Each day since it has published at least one story, and as many as seven. The Sanatoga edition focuses its coverage specifically on Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township and the village of Sanatoga, neighboring municipalities, and the Pottsgrove School District.

“We are honored by The Post‘s loyal and still growing readership,” Zlomek said, “and greatly appreciate our readers’ continued interest and support.”

A significant amount of planning has already been completed for new features, additions and enhancements in all three Post editions during 2010. “We’re excited about what’s ahead,” Zlomek added.

Sign up to get The Sanatoga Post delivered free daily by e-mail.
See our galleries for photos that appear in The Post. Got news for us? E-mail The Post.

SANATOGA PA – Stories that appear daily in The Sanatoga (PA) Post, The Limerick (PA) Post and The Pottstown (PA) Post – online news resources published by Career Education Media Ventures (CEMV) of Sanatoga – are now being distributed to a Greater Philadelphia audience through the Fwix real-time local news network.

The Fwix Philadelphia news stream.

Fwix, which was founded in September 2008, filters news and information from blogs, websites and social media outlets, and aggregates it geographically to be presented to readers like a continuous news ticker for one metropolitan area on a single page.

All three Post editions were added Thursday (Aug. 13, 2009) to the Fwix Philadelphia stream. Their news feeds join those of more than 80 other organizations being tapped by Fwix from across southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey.

Fwix is the second national network to distribute CEMV content. Stories solely from The Sanatoga Post have been distributed nationwide by Topix since October 2008, and appear almost daily in local news feeds offered at websites of the Cable News Network (CNN), The Washington Post, America Online (AOL), Comcast, Earthlink, and Google News.

“We’re pleased to have stories from The Posts made available to Fwix’s readership,” Managing Editor Joe Zlomek said. “It not only broadens the reach of our publications, and brings us even more readers, but it also helps tell our Philly area neighbors what great places Sanatoga and Lower Pottsgrove, Limerick, and Pottstown are to live, work, and visit.”

Fwix has already established news streams for 63 metro areas in the U.S., and plans to expand internationally later this year.

Sign up to get The Sanatoga Post delivered free daily by e-mail.
Got news for us? E-mail The Post.

LIMERICK PA – Firefighters support each other atop the roof of a garage during a house fire Thursday shortly before 5 p.m. at 372 N. Lewis Rd. Billowing smoke from the blaze attracted the attention of drivers on nearby U.S. Route 422. A portion of Lewis Road near the 422 interchange was closed for a time during the emergency. A woman who was the sole occupant of the home at the time escaped with the help of emergency crews, police said. More details and four additional photos are available at The Limerick Post.