If the folks at the top had a clue how the communities of Hillsborough County functioned, the lunacy of this current plan would be evident to them.

Sadly, they have discounted the local knowledge and abilities of those they had on staff who have covered these communities for what seems like eons.

By all reports, most of their community paper editors have been demoted to reporting jobs, covering beats, while out-of-towners or downtowners have been brought in to decide what is important and what isn’t to these communities.

It seems New Tampa will need to get used to Trib headlines that say North Boulevard is a part of that neighborhood and Town ‘N Country will once again be relegated to the back pages. No longer will these communities have a voice in the redundant “hyper-local” world of Mother Trib.

Forget the basics of “community journalism,” the every-person’s-voice-counts philosophy and the importance of covering things as small as club events, honor rolls and Girl Scout functions. These kinds of stories – the bread and butter of community journalism – will likely no longer grace the pages of any of these poorly planned sections.

What a shame.

It seems that the Tribune decided to base their news coverage on their delivery znes, rather than on areas with some degree of commonality.

For example, Palm River, Progress Village, & Orient Park have more in common with East Tampa, but they are in the Brandon coverage area with Fishawk and Valrico.

The two island groups downtown are split —
Davis Islands is part of South Tampa, while Harbor Island is in Central Tampa. Now, I’m not sure if Harbor Island and College Hill have all that much in common.

Two areas that would make sense for Central Tampa are lumped in with Westchase and Odessa in the Northwest section: Drew Park & Egypt Lake/Leto.

Lutz loses some of its own identity by merging with Carrollwood.

Nobody’s More Loco, is right.