CMJ BB faithful remember that I'm in charge of writing and organizing design and art content for Edge, a Sunday feature page here at The Flint Journal that's aimed at readers in their 20s-early 30s. It's entertainment and pop culture focused, with appropriate attention paid to local artists, musicians, etc.

People have really liked the page and its more irreverent tone, with the only gripe being that they wished there were more of it. So some months ago I submitted a proposal to turn Edge into a four-page section, outlining how we'd expand and market it to attract younger readers. Everyone loved my ideas and said it would be under serious talks while making next year's budget. Then I heard nothing.

Until today.

Now it's going to happen, probably not long after the first of the year. I'm meeting with the paper's higher-ups tomorrow morning to discuss content, logistics, timeframe, marketing, etc.

Wow. I am jacked. If I wasn't at work right now I'd pulled a robotboy and post pics of myself killing many beers in celebration. But we'll do that tonight instead. Yes sir. Yes we will.

nice. will this get web distro, too?

ROCK ON!!!

Congratulations, my friend.

That's awesome Chad. Good job.

How many 20 somethings are in a town like Flint? Have you ever encountered MC Breed and the DFC?

Oh, and a word to the wise...don't get too crazy with all this space. In HS, me and my friends were given a two page spread in our monthly paper, and promptly started making veiled references to taking acid, screwing girls at parties, and general debouchery (I think the straw that broke the camel's back and got us mixed was when we gave shout outs to massive drug addicts that were still alive like Keith Richards and Jerry Garcia...the principal had to step in and tell us to tone it down)

I'm sure you are much more mature and level headed, and this is a real paper and not high school, I basically just wanted to regale everyone with another tale from my wasted youth and talent.

Chad, that is incredible news!! I'm very proud of our lil' Michigan friend. Drink many many beers tonight!

Way to go. It should keep you busy.

Congrats man. A real good friend of mine works in the marketing dept of a lumber yard in the Flint area and I will demand that he purchase advertising in The Edge section.

Congrats.

Congratulations! That's awesome!

Thanks all,
Our photo ed just told me on the down-low that the brass wants to make the change in a coupl weeks, not after the first of the year as I had assumed. Yikes! I "officially" find this out tomorrow in the 11:15 meeting.

But it's cool. This is what I've been hoping for for a while now, so I'll be ready. I just have to scramble the jets and reorganize quite a bit; looks like everyone's getting gift cards for Xmas :?

In response to various inquiries;

Chuck D: Edge's written content is available on our parent Web site; MLive. Unfortunately the full graphic presentation that makes it so special gets lost in the electrons since all we do is dump content into their format. It sucks. But it's a chain-wide contract and I have less than no say in what happens.

LooG: Sometimes I think I know just about everyone in our target demo that lives in the area. But there are several community colleges and two universities here (UM-Flint and Kettering, which is a world-renowned engingeering school) and there's talk of building dorms downtown, which would be a very big step in solidifying the heart of the city.
As for the new space; one page will be an ad, one is a syndicated videogame page we already publish and will move into the section and the cover will stay largely the same. So we're really only talking about 1 extra page of content to deal with. Drugs and chicanery, though... It's got a nice ring to it. Can you work on a freelance basis? :wink:

newt: Nice. Every little bit helps.

T: Might hafta save the brews for tomorrow night. I realized I don't want to go into this meeting tomorrow morning all hung over and sleep-deprived. Tuesday night, though, it's on. Going to see the Eagles of Death Metal and I'm gonna kick it Homme-style in celebration.