Looking Down the Snoot…
The Tribune really gave it to the bloggers with both barrels yesterday. First, they printed this snotty column (and even took the rare step of hosting it online at their own domain, I guess so everyone could see it).
Then, they also included this nice cartoon with their column:
I guess this interests me on a number of levels. First, the Tribune has made a huge deal about their online forums and blogging sites, inviting readers to participate. Then they run a column like this, just so the peons understand that we’re really not worthy. Get it, Trib forum participants and bloggers? Now you know what they really think of you.
Second, the “mental giants” at the Trib are quick to applaud Missoula’s open records efforts, yet they choose to sit on the sidelines, quietly, as the same bullshit happens in their own town.
Third, I notice that the “thoughtful, intelligent, robust” writers at the Tribune manage to park on my site for a few hours a day. “Bloggers are idiots, but we can’t let them scoop us…”
Finally, I am not nearly as jealous or bitter about the Tribune as I might sound from this post. Frankly, scooping them has become sort of old hat; it’s easy. When they try and try to ignore stories broken on the blogosphere, like the Schweitzer vote rigging tape, it just makes them look weak. Then, when they finally run it like it’s their idea, well, it makes them look lame. We’re growing. They’re growing…weaker.
UPDATE:
| VISITOR ANALYSIS | |
| Referring Link | No referring link |
| Host Name | |
| IP Address | Great Falls Tribune |
| Country | United States |
| Region | Montana |
| City | Great Falls |
| ISP | The Great Falls Tribune |
| Returning Visits | 255 |
| Visit Length | 4 hours 57 mins 14 secs |
I hate it when we bloggers all get painted with one big brush.
The Trib could have taken the opportunity to do something smart: publish the anti-blog screed, and then invite you (or any other good blogger in GF) to publish a counterpoint. You know – presenting both sides of an issue.
Isn’t that something the paper is supposed to do?
[...] op-ed piece reprinted that slams bloggers, message boards and forums, I’m not surprised. The Great Falls Tribune could be forgiven for trying to slam the competition except that they’ve attempted to take [...]
The funny thing about the column is that while it’s not entirely incorrect, its premise –that anonymity is the culprit– is deeply flawed. I won’t bother to name the names of the two or three most aggressively impolite commenters on this site, but I could. Their identities are easy to establish –and they’re still jerks.
Whenever I read a traditional media outlet going on about how it’s more important than those nasty blogs, a few things spring to mind:
Mark Twain, himself a newspaperman, once commented, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.”
When I read a blog entry regarding a news item, it comes with links to source material and other illuminating components. When I read a newspaper, I get anonymous sources and “unconfirmed reports.”
Traditional media outlets complain that bloggers are unencumbered by accountability, but they usually do so on the same page on which you can read that NBC reported that the Washington Post cited unnamed sources yadda yadda yadda. The newsroom rule used to be “If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.” Now it’s “get it to press before the other guy, even if it’s wrong.”
Bloggers are biased, and they’ll tell you so. Journalists are biased, too, but they’ll tell you they aren’t.
If a plane crashes in front of the Tribune building this afternoon, I’ll read about it in several blogs this afternoon, with different accounts, photos, video and links to each other, the NTSB investigation, and the aircraft manufacturer’s website. I’ll read an outdated account in the Tribune tomorrow.
David, regardless of Gregg’s qualifications as a blogger (which are prodigious in the realm of citizen journalism) it might be more apt for one such as you to respond in the Trib. It’s not just a longevity thingy; it’s more that you understand that blogging isn’t journalism, per se. Regardless, your point stands. They offer no competing voice, nor suffer said.
Wulfgar, you are starting to grow on me. Why not post a few guest columns here in the interest of balance?
What I mean is that I don’t have to agree with your argumentation to appreciate the quality of your rhetoric.
With all due respect, Craig, Wulfgar has his own site. And, while I might not mind if he posted a “guest column” here once in a while, I think I will retain the power to invite contributors.
Sorry. Didn’t mean to upset things. I hadn’t seen his site. My bad. Of course you are right.
As Emily Latilla once said, “Never mind.”
Hey Tribune, get in the fight! KFBB and KRTV are all over the lack of
transparency and oversight at city hall, so get with it if you really BELIEVE
in the First Amendment and transparency…..
Good post Gregg. The “rag that calls itself a newspaper” is sorryass.
Gregg,
the tribune is upset because they are being shown-up as reporters or their lack of reporting and are affraid that people will start to cancell their ill-fated and ill-reported newspaper for better covergae from the bloggers. I too like getting my news from bloggers, but only the sites like yours that have links to back-up what they are printing. Kinda like Fox News, here it is, here are the sources, now you make up your own mind.
To the Tribune snoopers, if you spen less time checking out the competition and doing some actual reporting, like uh I do not know, maybe the crap going on in our city government, you might have a fighting chance. Otherwise I suspect in the near future you will be leaving Great Falls for another job or being in the unemployment line because you can not sell any newspapers.
Is it time for the Great Falls Leader to rise from the ashes?
Wonder why the Trib has not reported this: Pam Polejewski, infamous for harboring 200 animals west of Great Falls, resulting in confiscation of the animals, an animal cruelty conviction, a prohibition on owning animals until 2011, and costing Cascade County at least $40,000, filed a lawsuit last month against the County for, among other things, “civil liberty violations, prosecutorial meaness [sic]…emotional, mental, and physical cruelty.” (No. ADV-07-1002) She’s asking $47 million in damages. The County is represented by the firm Ugrin, Alexander, Zadick, and Higgins, one partner of which, Bob James, is the president of the Animal Foundation of Great Falls.
No sweat, Craig. You’re new.
AJTooley – depending on who was aboard that airplane that crashed, depending on who flew it, depending on who owned the plane itself, you might get the straight scoop from a local newspaper. For instance, if the plane crashed due to a screwup by a pilot who was also a prominent local advertiser, the paper is not so accountable. News is written on the back of ads, after all.
The newspaper people were never as good as they made themselves out to be. I come from Billings, where the publisher, Wayne Schile, decided what was news, what wasn’t, who got elected, who didn’t. I’ll take a blogger over him any day.
Craig said: Is it time for the Great Falls Leader to rise from the ashes?
What leader?
The Great Falls Leader was an old, defunct local newspaper.
[...] informing the voters of Montana than does the “mainstream media”. One must wonder why the traditional media holds such distain toward the new media…could it be the fact that we do the work that they can’t, or even worse, refuse to [...]
[...] seems to be somewhat of a kerfluff going on in the local blogosphere of late, though very marginal, about a certain Great Falls Tribune article [...]
Jaguar Xj12 Car Cover…
The Tribune really gave it to the bloggers with both barrels yesterday. First they printed this snot [...]…