LAist Gets Reviewed By Ex-Editor

Jason Toney, editor emeritus, is back to blogging, just not for LAist. On his personal blog, Negro Please, he writes that after three months "away from the daily grind of blogging about Los Angeles in our glutted city-blog landscape, I thought I'd take a look at what's going on in LA and who is doing it well. I've barely read most of these sites since I retired completely so it's almost a whole new world." Toney reviews a number of blogs (listed below) and then talks LAist:

And then there's my old stomping grounds. My baby. Although never quite my baby. It always felt a bit like a foster child who I loved but who I knew wouldn't be in my house long enough. I think Tony's doing a great job as editor. It feels a lot more like the busblog than it does -ist and I admire him for putting his stamp on it. I think most -Ist editors struggle with finding their own voice within the style guidelines of the network. I'm having a hard time reviewing the site because I don't know if I'm just nostalgic for my time as editor or if I'm convinced my vision of the site is just the way it should be done. I think it should be a little more newsy. I think it has a lot of the issues right now that blogging.la had. There's a lot more "cool factor" and a little less "news you can use." It's a little bit "busblog gone wild" and people unfamiliar might have a hard time feeling the site is accessible. I'm probably most critical of LAist because it used to be "mine" and I think it has the best model in place for trying to cover this behemoth of a city. My suggestions? a little more news, a little more events, a little more targeted neighborhood coverage, a little more food. A little more of everything.

He also reviews Los Anjealous, LAObserved, Blogging.LA, Angeleno (Martini Republic's LA centric blog) and FishbowlLA.