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Blogger gets jump on news of big condo

Tampa Bay area media outlets play second fiddle to a freelance guy with an Internet connection.

By CURTIS KRUEGER
Published December 8, 2005

	[Times photo: Brian Cassella]
	Tommy Duncan, 37, has a passion for Tampa news. He got a tip from a friend who just happened to read about the proposed Tampa Towers project on a different Internet site. He scooped Tampa Bay area newspapers and television stations. Related links Sticks of Fire blog TBT: Must-read blogs in Tampa Bay

TAMPA - The big news about a massive new condo project planned for downtown Tampa might be the way the news broke.

The first Tampa Bay area media outlet to carry the story was not a newspaper or a television station but a blogger who says, "I have zero journalistic education."

What Tommy Duncan does have is his own blog, a passion for Tampa news, and a friend who just happened to read about the proposed Tampa Towers project on a different Internet site.

After getting his friend's tip, Duncan posted an item about the condos on his blog, www.sticksoffire.com on Friday.

It was a digital milestone in the evolving Tampa Bay media scene, a case of a freelance guy with an Internet connection getting the story before the mainstream newspapers and television stations.

Duncan, 37, is married, has two daughters and lives in Brandon. He works in customer service for a software company and also sings in the Johnny G. Lyon Band. He spent a decade working for the Tampa Tribune - in accounting. He said he had nothing to do with writing news.

Duncan loves reading blogs, short for "Web logs," which are personalized Web sites that are regularly updated, like journals. But to Duncan, it seemed that most blogs focused either on big national issues or intensely personal ones. Duncan wanted something in the middle, a blog for people to share important information about local politics and community events.

So a couple of years ago he launched "Sticks of Fire," which harks to a Calusa Indian name for Tampa.

"The long-term goal was to get people interested in local politics and get them interested in the things that are most important to us Tampans," Duncan said.

The St. Petersburg Times independently learned of the Tampa Towers condo project this week, then discovered Duncan's blog, and interviewed the developer. The Times published a story about the project Tuesday, describing the plans for two 625-foot-tall towers that, if built, would be higher than the planned Trump Tower. The newspaper story noted that, "News of his project appeared Friday evening on a Tampa blog site." It appeared even earlier on www.skyscrapercity.com

Duncan said that "At first I was thrilled that I got a scoop," although slightly miffed the Times didn't mention his blog by name.

In the future, Duncan said he hopes the Tampa Bay blogosphere matures to the point that it produces more and more news of importance to local readers. And that, he hopes, will create more readers for local blogs.

"I think there's an opportunity for a lot of public participation . . . if you could imagine, if you will, somebody who goes to all the county commission meetings, just to write about that. There could be some things in there that newspapers or other people miss."

[Last modified December 8, 2005, 00:49:13]