[NOTE: Just posted a new round of replies to your latest wave of responses. Thanks! And keep them coming! -- David]
Here at TVWW, it’s time to share some news, officially introduce some new contributors, and ask for a bit of help – from you, if you’re so inclined. But it's not financial...
TV Worth Watching began as a solo website in 2007, with help and design know-how from Chris Spurgeon and the only still-active founding contributor, Eric Gould. Very quickly, with help from editor and columnist Diane Werts, it expanded to make room for other features and lots of other writers, all of whom I’m proud to display under the TVWW banner. Some have been with us for many years, some have gone and returned, and others have joined us quite recently, adding to our scope and vision as well as our roster.
I’d like to introduce and thank them in a moment, as well as note some backstage changes. But first, a thanks to you, because we all consider you so vital to our little mission here.
One thing that has amazed and impressed me about TV Worth Watching from the beginning has been the intelligence, enthusiasm and civility of its online readership. I suspect it’s because the reason we’re all here, readers as well as writers, is to seek out and celebrate the best that TV has to offer. But even when you readers disagree with us or with one another, or find and correct mistakes, you do so with a polite tone, proper grammar and spelling, and a general enthusiasm for quality rather than snark.
On the web, that’s not only refreshing. It’s damned near unprecedented.
So thanks for that. Thanks, also, for the continued support, whether you’ve discovered us lately or have been reading and commenting for years. And thanks, while I’m at it, for those of you who have expressed understanding that we’re a tiny operation, doing what we can while real life continues to pull all of us in other directions.
The Big Request: But we’re at the precipice of vaulting to the next level – and if we’re going to make that commitment, and do it successfully, we need your help. Don’t panic. I’m not talking about a Kickstarter campaign or anything requiring money – we’ve always refused to ask our readers for any subscription fees or contributions at TVWW, just as we’ve refused to install any pop-up ads.
No, the way to help us right now, if you have the time and motivation, is to write us a few sentences describing your experience with TV Worth Watching: How long you’ve been with us, how regularly you visit, and if it’s helped you find some quality TV shows you might otherwise have missed. That’s it.
If we’re going to be able to get to the next level, demonstrating the worth of TVWW is part of the equation. As one of the writers on this site, I feel one major value we offer is the aggregate expertise of our contributors, many of whom have decades of experience covering television. The other major value, though, is our readership – smart people in search of smart TV. So if you help us describe you, and your perception of TVWW, that’s a big help.
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TVWW News:
The sad news is the unexpected death, earlier this year, of one of our writers, Donna Plesh. For three decades, she wrote about television, mostly for California’s Santa Ana Register, and was one of the reliably friendly and professional faces at the Television Critics Association press tour. As both critic and interviewer, she was a welcome and strong addition to TVWW.
Before long, though, she was fighting cancer, gamely and bravely. Eventually, she succumbed – though not before apologizing that she wouldn’t be attending the next TCA press tour for us. Like that’s what mattered.
In her honor, we’re keeping her collection of TVWW articles in our active archive, accessible at Donna J. Plesh’s Talking Television. Please peruse them whenever you have time – and you’ll encounter a very sweet spirit.
On the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, the happy news at TVWW is that we continue to add folks to our website family, both in front of and behind the scenes.
Tom Brinkmoeller, one of our earlier contributors, has returned to the fold, reviving his Raised on MTM blog, and we’re very happy to have him back.
You may already have read stories by some of our new columnists: Alex Strachan’s TV That Matters, Barry Garron’s The Itch of Opinion, and Candace Kelley’s Bingeworthy. Each of them is a catch: Alex has been a Canadian TV critic and inquisitive press-tour staple for decades; Barry has clocked many, many years in the TV-critic trenches as well, most notably for The Hollywood Reporter; and Candace is a professor and journalist who’s also a TV producer and writer.
They’re the latest additions to a lineup that continues to impress me – and, I hope, you. Ed Bark (Uncle Barky's Bytes), Noel Holston (The Grassy Noel), Gerald Jordan (Crossing Jordan), and Jonathan Storm (Eye of the Storm) started out as TV critics about when I did, which is really saying something. Ed Martin (Ed Martin's TV Mix) and Bill Brioux (TV Feeds My Family) followed very soon after, and all of us bring our own perspectives and interests to the beat. We even have some relative youngsters, to help make our lineup younger than, say 60 Minutes: Monique Nazareth (MNtv) and Gabriela Tamariz (Streamline). And some intentionally far-flung perspectives, from business history professor David Sicilia (TV Moneyland) and from British TV professors Kim Akass and Janet McCabe (One if by Land, Two if By TV).
Not only couldn’t we make it without the contributions and talent of all these writers, but we wouldn’t want to. To find quality TV, you need quality writers about TV – and we’ve got more of them than any other TV site, period. I’ve grateful to, and proud of, each and every one.
How are we handling all of these contributors and contributions? Right now, barely, with most of the help (okay, all of the help) coming from associate editor Eric Gould (The Cold Light Reader) and our assistant editor, Linda Donovan (Donovan's Blog).
It’s been two years since a sudden death claimed another member of the TVWW family, managing editor Christy Slewinski, whose byline lives on in most of our “This Day in TV History” entries, and we’ve all been treading water ever since.
Meanwhile, readers, thanks for being here, as always. We’re coming up on eight years of daily Best Bets and articles – and we’re not through yet.
Not quite, anyway.