Q&A on Loaded Gun blog

Here's a Q&A excerpt from an upcoming feature on journalists who blog tentatively called "Bloggers on the EDGE." It gives some insight into my views on blogging versus print journalism:

What’s Loaded Gun about?
The official tagline is "Pop. Culture. Controversy. Boston." However, it’s specifically a Boston-based pop culture blog focusing on the controversial voices who fuel the local news, media, arts, film, politics, music, GLBT and comedy scenes. I recently moved back to Boston a little less than two years ago and I’ve migrated the blog, along with its editorial direction, to focus specifically on the Boston market.

When did you start blogging?
The blog started in 2006 as an online offshoot of a snarky, pop culture column I penned while I was an A&E editor at the Independent News, an alt-weekly based in Northwest Florida. Before Loaded Gun, I worked for MTV and VH1 in NYC and I had a lot of pent-up venom against the pop culture mainstream that needed some sort of release. My blog has become the perfect outlet to inform the public and test material that I’m working on for other publications.

Where did the name Loaded Gun come from?
Most people think it’s a rip on The Smoking Gun. It’s not. The title is pulled from an Emily Dickinson poem, "My life had stood – a Loaded Gun" which tapped into the MTV-manufactured rage I felt back in 2006.

How does blogging differ from your work with EDGE and other mainstream publications?
I use Loaded Gun to test the waters, especially if it’s a potentially controversial topic that I plan to use in print. I definitely take more chances with my blog and have a lot more interactivity with the readers compared to my print work. If a story is a complete misfire, trust me, folks who read Loaded Gun will let me know.

What are the similarities?
Journalistically, my print and online work are similar. I definitely spend more time researching and crafting my print articles with a stylistic flair. However, I can be a bit more subjective with Loaded Gun and a helluva lot more direct.