Independent placeblogs like the Muncie Free Press of Muncie, IN, are headed directly into head-to-head competition with newspapers who are starting to wrap placeblog-like community features around their traditional product.
That's what's happening in Muncie between the Muncie Free Press and the Star-Press of Muncie, a Gannett paper. But while some papers who are testing the waters on internet community initiatives understand the value of linking to all local blogs, others don't. That seems to be what's happening in Muncie, where links to the Muncie Free Press are being banned from the Star-Press's new "citizen journalism" site.
Refusing to link to local blogs cuts off a newspaper-based community from valuable sources of new readers -- and it means that while the paper may stay the paper of record for their community, they'll never be the website of record for their community.