His lengthier investigative pieces were in addition to prolific shorter stories on multiple fronts that enriched the daily news cycle on TheDistrictWeekly.com.
[Via telephone, transcribed from our notes] Next month would have been our third anniversary, and in three years we did a lot of good journalism on a lot of different fronts.
I think we introduced LB to a different style of journalism...and some in Long Beach never full knew what to do with us, they had a hard time incorporating viewpoints that were sort of outside the mainstream.
There were several advertising boycotts when we touched people who weren't used to be touched. That was damaging to a start-up publication, but on the whole we had a positive role and I think Long Beach is a better place for our having been here.
LBReport.com: Of what pieces are you most proud?
A: There were several different stories although it's really not one in particular. It's the idea that we may have reintroduced investigative journalism to the city. For example -- and I'm not taking credit for this -- but the stories that appeared in the Press-Telegram on Craig Beck (city management staffer's trip to No. Cal. w/ advocate/lobbyist Mike Murchison)...The PT knew we had that story and they hustled to get their story out first...and then to their credit they kept it going. Again, I'm not taking credit for the excellent job they did, but I think TheDistrictWeekly's presence made that story more likely to happen.
LBReport.com: What else would you like readers to keep in mind?
A: What happened shouldn't be blamed on the economy, although the economy is lousy, and it shouldn't be blamed on our journalism, which was good. Yes, the boycott by some advertisers hurt us, but in the end, I think that with a more efficient model, we could have succeeded and certainly lasted longer than we did.
(March 17, 2010) -- As one the TheDistrictWeekly's Senior Editors (part of the original crew (with Senior Editor Theo Douglas) who previously labored at the Press-Telegram and then the OCWeekly, Dave Wielenga wrote fearlessly and broke stories on (among other things) City Hall's "Sea Festival" dealings with Chris Pook, City Hall emails regarding the SE LB wetlands/open space land exchange (obtained by Tom Marchese's Public Recs request).
