Connecting with Savannah

I had the chance last week to speak for a little while with Jim Morekis, editor of Connect Savannah. Jim and I have spoken on the phone and via e-mail a little bit, but I think it was our first face-to-face meeting.

He's a heck of a guy. He' s been at Connect Savannah since before it was Connect Savannah, and has a fierce, well-deserved pride for the publication and what it's become during his tenure.

I talked with him about the differences between our two publications, most of which stem from the different places they're published. Jim's a little older than I am, and Connect Savannah focuses a lot on being an honest-to-God newsweekly.

Connect Statesboro, on the other hand, is run by a mostly young crew, and we're in a college town. Not only that, but I share office space with a daily newspaper. As much as I love straight-up news journalism, Connect's mandate is entertainment, not covering school board meetings. In effect, if we tried to run lots of news we'd be competing with ourselves.

Connect Savannah's also been around for five times as long as we have. Though they continually evolve, they've figured out what works. We're still at a stage where we can make dramatic changes on a dime (like the redesign that hit in January).

One of my concerns has been in the vastly different tones of the two publications. We share a logo, the occasional story, and not much else. I told Jim that I pictured one of my college freshman readers going to Savannah, seeing a copy of Connect Savannah, and picking it up.

They flip through it and put it down quickly. "I don't want to know about somebody dumping toxic waste in the river! I wanna see pictures of hot chicks at the club!" they say.

One of Jim's readers comes to Statesboro, sees the logo, and picks up a copy of Connect Statesboro. "Damn, who let the frat boys have a magazine?" they think before tossing it.

Jim laughed, and told me he didn't think that would happen. Diversity is strong for a brand, he said.

I respect Jim's opinion highly. He's bar-none one of the best bloggers out there, and he knows how to run a magazine. If that's good enough for him, it's good enough for me.