About

At first, AtlantaUnsheltered was the project of Ken Edelstein, a longtime Atlanta journalist who left Creative Loafing last November after serving as the editor there for about a decade. Then, in June, I was joined by Jeanne Bonner, another accomplished journalist, who came to Atlanta last summer.

AtlantaUnsheltered is a candid, opinionated news blog on select Atlanta topics. We want to providea mix of original stories and commentary on stories that first appeared elsewhere, with an emphasis on information and insight that you may not have found otherwise. I hope it’ll provide both entertainment and a lot of conversation starters.

But it’s also intended as a work-in-progress: We want to be fluid about what AtlnataUnsheltered is, and we also want it to serve as a place where we can experiment for other projectss.

For now, we’re concentrating on five or six broad categories — media, rivers & trails, politics, and smart growth. Blog de Ken is a catchall category that also serves as my (Ken’s) personal blog.

I hope we can fool you into thinking our viewpoints are insightful rather than obnoxious, that our scoops are surprising rather than wrong, and that our tone is edgy rather than insane. More than anything I hope you’ll pay attention and join in the conversation.

We’re using as much social media as possible — not for the sake of showing it off, but rather to make the site useful for readers. For example, I like the idea of using Twitter Feeds the same way some sites might publish aggregated headlines. To get those headlines — which amount to a local news service on smart growth, media and politics — follow me @kenedelstein.

I am amazed at how versatile and powerful Wordpress and a couple of plugins have gotten. I put together an earlier version of the site in late February 2009 on a premium blog called Live Wire, but I found that it was too much like a magazine and not enough like a blog. After three months, I switched to a free WordPress theme, called Revolution Code Red, which seems to fill our needs a bit better and is easier to use.

Please don’t hesitate to suggest ways that the site could be better, whether it’s the format, the use of plugins and social networking, or the content itself.

Being an unemployed guy, I don’t have the money to hire stringers. But, by all means, let me know as ken@atlantaunsheltered.com if you want to contribute, or if there’s a story I should cover or link to. And please, puhleez, puhhhleeeeezzzzz — comment!

I’ve been a journalist for about 30 years now. You’ll find more about me here. But — after 11 years of editing Atlanta’s alternative newsweekly — I’m not exactly sure where my future is. Newspaper layoffs and the chaotic meritocracy that is the Worldwide Web has a way of bunching everyone back at the starting gate, old geezers, mid-career folks (like myself), and the cocky young’ns. OK, then. If that’s the way it’s going to be, here goes …

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