David Simon's prepared statement before Congress

Man Kerry is hitting the Google lady back pretty hard. This is very interesting.

 

A differing view:

http://gawker.com/5243523/david-simon-dead+wrong-dinosaur

 

Yeah, a differing and entirely self-serving view, that Gawker piece. You can always tell when someone from old media hits home about paying for good, solid professionalism because the shrillness of the blogosphere goes up about nine octaves when anyone tries to call it what it is: stealing. I especially like the part where he says of Simon, "Apparently he hasn't been there in a while."

Here's the Washington Post article David Simon did about that very topic. He WAS there and makes the point that he didn't see bloggers pursuing that police shooting either.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022703591.html

I live in the Bay Area, and I can tell you that not one of the blog stories Gawker cited has made one degree of difference in anybody's life. No change has come about as a result of any of those investigations. I haven't read the stories so I can't comment on their reporting quality, but the guy unwittingly makes Simon's case quoted a few posts above, the "sufficient standing to make public officials even care to whom it is they are lying."

I don't know if the kid wants to bone Arianna Huffington (solid choice btw) or get a paycheck from her, but he has a lot better chance at the former.

 

While the Gawker piece wasn't entirely wrong, it's an idealized view of a small majority of bloggers. And, frankly, even that ideal? I was a city hall reporter. I knew gadflies. I took calls from gadflies. I pursued stories after being bitched at by gadflies. I do not want to rely on the city hall gadflies for my news. There's no denying these people are valuable due to their obsessiveness, but they often have agendas of their own that are just as skewed as the cities they're hammering away at, and they aren't shy about making accusations that the facts don't support. Not saying blogs by these people aren't interesting reads, and informative ones on occasion, but the idea of that becoming our primary source of "journalism" chills me to the bone.

To be clear, I think citizen blogs have their place as an information source. They are not, and I hope for society's sake never will be, as a primary source of reliable, in depth information.

 

UGH! Arianna Huffington was just flat out annoying in her testimony and not only because of her Zsa Zsa Gabor impersonation but for her blatant ignorance of facts and her holier-tnan-thou, spitting-in-the-face-of-newspapers delivery. I thought for a moment she was going to challenge Simon to a duel.

 

It's getting and will continue to become more chilly (chillier?); call it the New Ice Age.

 

This seems so stupid to me that we could have ever gotten to this point.
"So antiquated," she said.
News has to be free now? Wow.

And BTW, does anybody else see this as Congress kind of doing this as a glorified field trip type deal where they are learning about the mess newspapers are in, but when the day is over will just shake their heads and say to the missus, 'Good, the watchdog business is dead. I always thought newspaper people were weird anyway.'

 

When Kerry asked Huffington how many people THP employed, she said 60 plus freelancers. Sixty! Ask any other major metro if it can survive on 60 staffers, covering what needs to be covered. The model to make money at this doesn't work right now.

 

She said she "employs" 60 freelancers.
How many of them actually get paid a living wage?

 

What happens when those citizen bloggers get bored and stop going to city council meetings? Or when there's a good Monday Football Game on they really want to see? As Zeke said recently, the next blogger to make the midnight cop call rounds will be the first.

Of course the self-serving twits at Gawker are going to defend their way of life. If they didn't, the work might realize how little they get off the couch. It's much easier to snark from the sidelines than it is to pound on doors. If the New York Times and the Washington Post disappeared, how would the people on Huffington Post even know what to talk about?

 

Local TV?