What Mr. Pawlenty does have is a beat reporter from Politico chronicling every utterance and movement of his noncampaign: a 25-year-old named Kendra Marr, who followed him through subzero temperatures last week equipped with a salt-coated Chevrolet Malibu rental, a laptop and a hand-held video camera.
via www.nytimes.com
Often when the Times covers the ascendancy of blogs as news sources they use traditional yardsticks, as they do in this article, which meditates on the number of reporters or the blogs' new focus on (the conveniently undefined) "original reporting." The Times rarely discusses the smaller footprint of the independents' production model, their deep ethos of efficiency, their ability to know when to compromise and when to take a stand, or the way their audience feels so passionately about these sites, which offers them a miles-long head start as growth plans rely more and more on peer recommendation and word of mouth.
I wonder if it's because the Times is still unaware of how dramatically the news world has changed, or these observations were made and left out in editing. They lionize Politico as the site that's grown-up from being a "garage band," without mentioning that TPM has a comparable reach and one-tenth the staff.
There's a good buddhist saying for this situation- "don't ask for applause"- it basically means don't expect the universe to congratulate you for your achievements. In a similar vein, I think it's self-defeating to expect the main-stream media to applaud you while you burn down their business-model.
Posted by: Jake | January 30, 2011 at 10:43 AM
You are correct. But I'm not asking for applause, just a modicum of self-awareness on their part.
Posted by: David Jacobs | January 30, 2011 at 10:47 AM
I also guess I want the Times to be thinking about this stuff and improving.
Posted by: David Jacobs | January 30, 2011 at 01:32 PM
Not me- you know, it's like
If you ain't never been to the ghetto
Don't ever come to the ghetto
'Cause you wouldn't understand the ghetto
So stay the fuck out of the ghetto
Posted by: Jake | January 30, 2011 at 02:40 PM
"Ms. Marr then planted herself at a table in the back of the bookstore, where she filed a 500-word article that was posted on Politico’s home page about an hour after Mr. Pawlenty had left the building.
"
As a former 'flyover' country reader of The Times I have to say that if the times writers' continue to denigrate and condescend in articles that are tertiary at best in their own research and writing, then their naivette or snobbery, whichever it may actually be, will surely cement their being stuck in the 20th century.
The whole tone of the article strikes me as defensive at best and I could feel the red glow around the ears and the hairs rise up on the back of the reporters neck. The tone of that last paragraph quoted above insinuated that hard and immediate work lacks authenticity, depth, meaning, experience with a focus purely on immediacy while ignoring the reality that it is efficient, timely, and concise, neither of which this article meets. Besides the fact that what would a Times editor prefer a 2000 word article on an appearance at Barnes & Noble?
Not only are they not recognizing the ascendency of blogs as news sources, but they are also failing to do what they insinuate these blogs cannot, report with clarity, objectivity and meaning from a higher level.
But it must feel pretty bad to watch the paper you grew up with flail around like it's been doing in fighting the new competition. This all reminds me of when my favorite paper in San Antonio, The San Antonio Light, shut down and left us with the San Antonio Express. The Light was always the long-form best for journalism in the city but the express was lean and mean and adapted. Even the great fail if the good are one step ahead when the race begins.
Alas, the Times isn't dead and is still the authority, isn't it?
Posted by: Angrywayne | January 30, 2011 at 10:09 PM