All good things must come to an end. My tenure as the primary face of YallPolitics is one of those things. I am happy to announce that Frank Corder of the FireMcCoy blog will now be the face of YallPolitics. He will be able to be reached via email at frank (at) magnoliatribune.com. You may have noticed he’s been writing features since Neshoba. For those of you who don’t know him, Frank is a Pascagoula City Councilman and hosts a radio show on the Coast. He is someone who I think has distinguished himself in his focus of blogging about the upcoming Speaker race at FireMcCoy.com and I think he will continue to do great things with the YallPolitics platform. Though Frank will bring his own style, the daily news update structure and quality of content will not change. I will continue to own the site and be involved behind the scenes, but the plan is for me not to have a visible role going forward.
There are a lot of reasons why I am making this change, but ultimately the biggest one is I just think it’s time.
Indulge me for a recap. It’s pretty hard to believe that 7 years ago this month, I started JacksonsNextMayor.com. JNM was built to follow the race between Frank Melton and Harvey Johnson in a way that just hadn’t been done before. After Melton won in 2005, we had this tremendous platform and nothing to focus on. So, I transitioned the content into MississippiPolitics.com to focus exclusively on Mississippi politics that featured daily news feeds and most importantly interaction from users. Through a couple of twists and turns, I renamed it Y’allPolitics where it stands today.
Here is a list of accomplishments we’ve had so far.
Over 40,000,000 page views
Almost 30,000 posts that now serve as a living breathing Mississippi political archive
Regularly named as one of the best state political blogs in the state/country
Mentions by the WSJ, LA Times, Forbes, WAPO, Overlawyered, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds, Pajamas, Politico, RedState, the Hill (I’m sure I’m forgetting a few) and just about every Mississippi political columnist and pundit around
And, of course, the book Kings of Tort that I co-authored as a result of our coverage of the Dickie Scruggs scandal
I really think YP has moved the needle in the way news and information is disseminated in Mississippi. There are some other great bloggers that really care about Mississippi that try and get it right everyday. Brett Kittridge at Majority, James Hendrix at Jackson Jambalaya, Tom Freeland at NMC, Philip Thomas at MS Litigation Review, Sid Salter on his blog, Taggart and Nash at Red/Blue, and Josh Gregory at Magnolia Report are all folks who I enjoy interfacing with and folks who I think play a great role. Also, thanks to Paul Gallo, JT and Marshall Ramsey for their support over the years at Supertalk. That has had a very positive effect on the reach YP has throughout Mississippi. I am ever grateful for everyone else I have regularly worked with in the media, in the political realm and of course, the readers of YP.
From the bottom of my heart, thanks y’all.
