About

Updated 13 September 2024

About this web site

This site is called a blog because it uses the “blog format”.  That refers to a home page with a collection of introductory paragraphs – just like this site uses and it allows comments. Also it is operated by just one person.  Articles are intended to be neutral (no bias) and as such they can be described as news or media articles.  Hence the official name. “Cobourg News Blog”. 

Topics covered and policy/philosophy

The focus is Cobourg – not Port Hope or Northumberland.  Not all news is covered – but if you feel something should be covered but is not, feel free to email me at [email protected]. If it fits per the criteria below, and it’s of local interest (that’s Cobourg, not Port Hope), I will likely post on it.  Note that the purpose is to provide news coverage of Cobourg and not to operate a business. 

News coverage is intended to be unbiased and neutral – I go to some trouble trying to achieve this.   If I don’t always succeed in your opinion, don’t slander me with accusations of an intent to be biased.  However, I sometimes expand on the news with leading questions.

Although political events and events pushing a cause are often the subject of an article, it should not be inferred from these that I personally support or oppose a particular Political party or cause.  I do have opinions but my intent is not to express them but simply report on what happens. 

My goal is to provide a service to the Cobourg Public and not to run a business.  No money is accepted from the Public although I host Google ads which I have only a little control over. As a service to the public, I occasionally reference other local news web sites but always giving them full credit.  In this world of Internet and shrinking conventional media, to get ALL the news, one has to go to multiple web sites. There is also a list of other news sources here.  I especially recommend Pete Fisher’s site – occasionally, I will link to one of his articles of particular interest.

News items covered: 

  • Cobourg Council Meetings – occasionally County Council – also Municipal activities
  • Provincial and Federal Politics that directly affect Cobourg
  • Major crime like hold-ups and overall Police statistics but not minor crime like domestic disputes
  • Elections in Cobourg and related politics 
  • Significant Business issues
  • Citizen activism but not extremism
  • Announcements and major or unusual events in Town.
  • Anything significant enough about Cobourg to get in Toronto or National papers.

Items NOT covered

  • Most sports events – unusual or major events may be mentioned.
  • Fundraising – unless it’s otherwise newsworthy
  • Community meetings – instead see this list of Community organizations (clubs).
  • Community notices such as weddings, deaths, engagements, births
  • Church announcements.
  • Promotion of your no doubt worthwhile cause – Entertainment events are promoted on this page.
  • I don’t do investigative reporting or interviews

Other information about Cobourg

  • There is a whole lot of information about Cobourg at the parent site: Cobourg Internet – it includes Medical information, Council information and generally information for anyone living in Cobourg
  • Cobourg has a lot of Entertainment – for details go to this page.

Style

Newspaper and magazine writers are constrained to use the style mandated by the managing editor although these “style books” are usually not made public.  It seems useful to provide a few words on writing styles used on this blog but note that this is separate to management of comment content which is discussed here.  Although the intent is to follow the usual rules of spelling and English grammar, formalities such as the use of titles such as “His Worship” (I really dislike that term) or even “Mrs.” are avoided in favour of using styles used in polite conversation. Likewise as long as it’s clear who is being referred to, first names are used freely.  Punctuation and Capitalization are used to keep sentences clear but may not follow some traditional rules. The intent is to avoid difficult to follow jargon as often used in Press releases – especially by the Police, lawyers and bureaucrats – and to make articles easy to read and easy to understand.

Since this is an online thing, style is more web oriented with liberal use of headings, lists and bullets.  Given my Engineering background, English used is less narrative and more descriptive.  If an item is based on a Press Release and someone’s actual words or other public notification is quoted, it will be in quote signs ” “.  Indents will usually indicate a direct quote.

Note that square brackets [ ] are used for text inserted that is explanatory and not a direct quote.  It means that I am the author of text inside those brackets.  Underlining and “all capitals” are avoided – instead bold, italics and larger fonts are used for headings and emphasis.

Policy on Public Announcements

Some events or causes get publicity and others do not and it may seem that this is arbitrary but it is not.  Entertainment events (that is, events intended to entertain) may be listed (if they are major) in the Cobourg Internet Entertainment page here but a post is only written on events like a political announcement when they are a “News Event”.  Generally this means a Press conference, the presence of politicians, the media are invited etc.  Please don’t simply email me and ask me to “help publicise or promote this worthy cause.”  It may well be worthy but it has to be a news item to get in this News Blog.

Subscribe

To get an email at 8:00 am when there has been a new post, you need to subscribe here.

RSS Feed

You can follow this blog using RSS.  For this you need an “RSS Reader”.  I use Yahoo’s home page at https://my.yahoo.com  but there are other options.  The Yahoo home page is a portal that you can use as your home page and populate with your favourite news sources although first you need a Yahoo account.  Once you have a free account, to see the Cobourg Blog feed on the Yahoo page (others will be similar) do the following:

On the Yahoo home page, click “add content”; then in the box, add URL: https://cobourgblog.com/feed then click the search icon. Cobourg News Blog appears in a small box with a + sign.  Click the box and the + changes to a tick.  Then click done.  The feed will now show on your Yahoo home page – move it to your preferred screen location.

The RSS feed will show the title and a short extract of recent posts.  You can click the title to see the whole thing. The display is updated at no more than 12 hour intervals.

Like other RSS readers, Yahoo’s “my.yahoo” allows multiple sources and like Twitter, you need to monitor it.

Traffic

As of 13 September 2024, since 24 Sept 2017 when the site moved to this technology, there have been 1273 posts and 37,133 comments. Hits on each article are indicated on each post.

Advertising

Unlike some other news sources, there are NO “sponsored” news items – Sponsored means paid for.  No articles on this site are paid for.

There are a limited number of ads – provided by Google. Content for Google ads is determined solely by Google – although I have specified that some ads are excluded.  NOTE: the ads you see are placed by Google and are chosen based on their records of what sites you have visited. Ads will be different for each person viewing the site.  You will most likely see a different ad than someone else.

Blog features

  1. Comments are allowed – see this separate page for full details;
  2. You can subscribe – that is get an email whenever a new post is made.  Emails are sent at 8:00 am on the morning after a new post is made.  Subscribe here.
  3. You can sort posts by Tag (listed in a side box);
  4. Ability to like or dislike comments (thumbs up/down);
  5. Repeat comments will use the name you previously used;  although enabled, this feature can be bypassed but a requirement of commenters is that they continue to use the same name.
  6. The requirement to include a user name and valid email will be enforced;  names must be different – duplicates will be edited or deleted.
  7. Integrated Photo galleries with a slide show – but also “click to enlarge” on most individual photos.
  8. Excellent management of spam (more on this on comments page).  Included is invisible Recaptcha by Google. Although other measures are also taken, unfortunately some persistent spammers still manage to pollute the conversations.
  9. Easily print an article.
  10. If you are registered and login, you can edit a comment for half an hour after you posted it;

Letters to the Editor

As a supplement to Cobourg News, Letters to the Editor may be submitted.

Submitting a Letter

Send your submission to [email protected] – format is not critical since it will be re-formatted for the web page.  Include any images as attachments.

Name of author

The real name of the Author is required and will be published unless there are exceptional circumstances.  Also required but NOT for publication is the email address and (preferably) Canada Post address.

Content

  • Letters can talk about a Post or may start a different topic.  Letters are necessarily opinions and typically would talk about an idea.
  • Political statements are allowed but not during an election campaign
  • No personal criticisms are allowed
  • Authors are encouraged to keep their letters on one topic.
  • Images and Videos (hosted on You-Tube or Vimeo) are allowed.
  • Comments are not available on letters to the editor.

Notification

Subscribers to the blog will be notified by email of any new Letter at the first 8:00 pm after publication.  Note that letters to the editor are hosted on sibling site Cobourginternet.com.

Browser

Although the site is compatible with all Browsers, for best experience with photo galleries, when using a phone please note the following:

Site works best with one of the following (as tested on an Android phone):

  • Use Firefox browser instead of Chrome.OR
  • Before expanding photos or viewing slide show, turn your phone to view the page in landscape mode 

Technology

The site uses WordPress and one URL:

  • CobourgBlog.com

Hosting is provided by Hostpapa – in the rare occasion that the site is down, blame them! I have also implemented Cloudflare which provides a good protection against hackers and a slight improvement in speed. Note that WordPress is hands down best for sites where comments are allowed – few will dispute this.  That’s what this site uses.  In my opinion, Joomla is best for sites that do not require comments although it is not as suitable to be managed by website neophytes.

The site runs on a server with Operating System AlmaLinux8. Other software is Apache, PHP 8.1, MySQL and of course, WordPress, using Simple Life Theme.

The site is secure (encrypted).

Security

Popular Blogs are a target for hackers so this site uses multiple defenses. Protection against robots (as distinct from humans) is provided by the Google service recaptcha. This works invisibly so you should not be bothered by it.  Protection against hackers is provided by Cloudflare which also speeds access although sometimes seems to be slow to respond.  Protection against human spammers is provided by the built-in tools of WordPress.  Protection against human attempts to login is provided by the Configserver Firewall.  And finally, if someone gets through all that, their spam comments are manually deleted.

Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy is here.