Citizens Launch an Alt-Web Site   

Small-town politics had Kimi-Scott McGreevy's blood boiling. Feeling stifled by her local newspaper, McGreevy and about 15 other frustrated people yearned for a venue that would allow them to speak their minds.

As a result, in September they created Citizens for Political Reform (citizens-prevail.org), enabling concerned residents of Allegany County, Maryland, to provide the side of the story that McGreevy says "nobody hears through the legit media." The site's creators furnish information about local economic development, education and late-breaking news, and post a section called Off the Record, which, McGreevy says, contains the facts other papers failed to mention.

"The Web site has created controversy in the community among the small group of people who hold the power and the good old boys who control everything," says McGreevy, 42.

The site does not feature objective, straight news stories. It gives additional details and viewpoints of local issues and stories covered in the Cumberland Times-News. Articles from the Baltimore Sun and other publications are also posted on the site. With a daily circulation of about 31,000, the Times-News, which caters to Maryland and West Virginia residents, is the only paper in secluded Allegany County.

People need to have an outlet to express their political views and concerns, says McGreevy, who claims she was banned from the Times-News editorial page after writing a number of unfavorable letters about the Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates, Casper R. Taylor Jr.

But Managing Editor Jan Alderton says about 50 letters have run in the paper in the past year that were critical of Taylor. Four since January were McGreevy's. "For her to say she had been banned from the editorial page is just simply not true. There is a moratorium on her being a serial letter writer--somebody who drones on and on about the same thing."

Alderton says he has no opinion about her Web site, though he is not opposed to McGreevy's having it.

Droning or not, McGreevy apparently has more to say, and she plans to continue to do so on the site, which had about 122,800 hits by May.

"One of the things we want to do is encourage a new crop of candidates to run for office here," she says. "I think we have helped to get the general population get more interested in the political process."