Thursday, August 6, 2026
The story of how Newsonaut flourished, went on life support, and is making a comeback
This is my entry for AuguStory, a blogging challenge from Robert Birming to tell the story of your blog.
Once upon a time, Newsonaut was called Newsloops. The name was a mashup of news and Kamloops, reflecting my frequent commentary on local news for the newspaper where I worked.
The internet was still new-ish back in 2010, but we could see it was coming for our lunch. One of our strategies was to embrace it, doing anything we could think of that would bring us into the digital age. And for me, that included a blog.
About a year later, I changed the name to Newsonaut. I’m a long-time fan of science fiction and I wanted to take my writing beyond the local news.
Despite our best efforts, Google and Facebook starved the paper of ad revenue and it shut down in January 2014. I carried on writing for a couple of years — determined that journalism would in some way continue to be my occupation.
That fell by the wayside, though, as I accepted my new role as web developer for the local university. My focus shifted and I wrote far less often.
My blog never went away, though, and now, in retirement, it has found a new life as I rediscover writing for pleasure.
I’m back to writing for myself. It no longer matters if someone is paying me to do it or giving me some kind of recognition.
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