I was casually surfing around for local news yesterday when I decided to visit Swamplot. I hadn’t visited the site in a while, ergo I found myself a little shocked when I read that the folks who run the site had declared that it was time for them to say goodbye. No specific reason was given for the site to stop publishing, but it would be my hope that the site will stay up, if for no other reason than to be a reference for Houston’s past.
Swamplot will sadly be joining a list of Houston area news outlets which have left us over the years. I have vivid memories of being an avid reader of the Public News back in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Indeed, one of the best articles I ever read in any paper was back circa 1994, when the Public News wrote a long story about a newfangled thing called the Internet. The folks at the Public News declared that this new technology would be nothing short of revolutionary, and would change the way we lead our lives. That article was one of the few predictions about the future that I’ve ever heard in my entire life that turned out to be absolutely true. Sadly, the Public News had money problems and was acquired by the Houston Press. The Houston Press, in turn, had to stop publishing via print a few years ago – another in the long list of media which no longer has any presence in print.
I wasn’t too avid of a reader of Swamplot, but I did find their relentless coverage of the Houston real estate landscape quite compelling. It almost seemed to me like nothing ever got by them. That is one of the beauties of having a site dedicated to one big topic. If the site is to be no more, one can only hope that a similar site will pop up in the future that will cover the city and region as thoroughly as Swamplot did.
Swamplot: Many thanks. I bid you a friendly adieu.
