Bristol editor gives one-fingered salute to Washington Post

I thought if he was some awesome journalist who went on to greatness after the Washington Post told him he already was all that he could be, I wouldn't have to read his bio.

 

The guy is the editor of a small paper that won the Pulitzer. He should be proud. Why begrudge him that? Have you heard of the reporter before, now a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter? I'm guessing you didn't. Does he not rate in your book as an "awesome journalist" because you didn't immediately recognize his name?

 

As someone who has always worked for "little papers that could" AND who is 38, I liked the column.

There IS good reporting happening in the hinterlands, if you're willing to look among the local-kid-makes-good features and columns after columns of obits and police blotter. I think that was the overall point, more than a one-fingered salute.

Congrats to the Bristol Herald Courier and its staff!

 

Not everyone loves J. Todd Foster, but I do.

I'd work for him any day, and he knows it.

I also believe he'd be happy to have me work for him. That means a lot.

He's rightfully proud of his reporter's and paper's accomplishment, and the column makes some good points.

I have to say that I could have done without that last visual/paragraph, however, despite the point that it makes...

 

Loved it. But didn't the reporter, Gilbert, go to University of Chicago? That defeats part of his "we didn't go to Princeton" anti-elitism argument. Then again, U of C doesn't churn out many journalists.

 

Well, it sounds like he bashed the post because he's spiteful and wished he worked there.

 

I think you may be projecting.

 

If he wished he worked at the Washington Post, either way back when or now, that would make him different from most of the rest of us...how?

It's not jealousy. It's almost everyone in this business's goal, ideally, to work at a place like that. Isn't it?

 

I'm not spiteful, I'm hopeful. That could change tomorrow, though.

 

Instead of writing that column, he could have just put this in the paper:

 

As someone who used to work in the hinterlands of journalism, albeit under the shadow of The Washington Post itself, I enjoyed the point he was making. Some of his points could have been better left unmade, however.

The gist of his point, that you don't have to work at The New York Times, The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal to do great journalism is one I've searched for a long time to find illustration for. Now I have it.