Not so random thought of the day

It's not too late... is it?


Jeff Gottlieb, one of the two L.A. Times journalists (Ruben Vives is the other) that broke the devastating story of the outrageous salaries and compensations of Bell, CA city officials, was on Chris Reed's outstanding Top Story radio show last week.

Reed casually joked with Gottlieb that both he and Vives were on the "glide path" to a Pulitzer prize in journalism. Gottlieb somewhat sheepishly observed that all they really did was use freedom of information/sunshine laws to obtain the information. He then said something that we thought was extremely important: (paraphrasing) What we did could only be done by a newspaper and a big one at that. A blogger could not have done what we did. When the city of Bell initially stone-walled us from obtaining salary and compensation documents, we simply told them that our lawyers would be the next people they would hear from. The muscle and prestige afforded by a renowned institution like the L.A. Times made breaking this story possible.

Gottlieb is 100% correct. We couldn't do what the Times did. And we don't think that say, either, The Liberator Today or The Scratching Post have the time and resources to essentially threaten the city of Bell with legal action if they did not release the documentation the Times was seeking.

This is why it is so important for the newsies to re-commit themselves to upholding the trust that exists between they and their readers with respect to being that watchdog of democracy.

For as much crowing as we like to do over the ascendancy of the new media, it's still the good ol' fashioned old media that is doing the vast majority of yeoman's labor when it comes to breaking stories like this.

We're newsies at heart - we grew up reading the newspapers and consider ourselves news geeks to the point that we can rattle off the dailies of about every major metropolitan area in this country and that is why it pains us even more to see the traditional print media behave so poorly of late. Technological and socio-cultural advancements are one thing, but there is no need to grab a shovel to assist in your own grave-digging.

So, c'mon newsies! If you are going to go out the way of the buggy whip, do it with some pride and integrity!


Welcome Hot Air commenters and readers! Many thanks to Leslie over at Temple of Mut for the link to this post.

A different slant on newspaper bailouts (UPDATED)

First, a little light reading on an accusation made by a former ACORN employee that the New York Times spiked a story on President Obama’s association with the community organizing umbrella group because it would be “game changer”, here.

Now, a little more about this business of bailing out newspapers, the current proposed bill that would prohibit newsies from endorsing candidates and whether or not they warrant it, which we posted on earlier this week.

Pops made a very good point which we’ve decided to liberate from the comment section. He said:

The concept that newspaper could not endorse a candidate as an "educational" publication is meaningless. The main endorsements are performed in the choice of articles to be run and the manner in which the articles are presented. I quit the LATimes when I found anti-Bush commentary in the cartoon page.

He’s spot-on. The ban on official endorsements is absolutely toothless as the newspaper is free to run whatever news stories they want and which can be used to effectively slant or steer the narrative in whichever direction the editor wishes.

We recall with great clarity during the run-up to the 2004 election that one could set their watch by two anti-Bush and/or anti-Iraq war stories showing up on the front page of the L.A. Times (one above the fold and one below) every. single. Sunday. (We’re not quite sure that is the proper analogy but we’re rolling with it.)

For those of you out there that want to whine that we’re just reflexive, right-wingers who want to trash Old Media because it’s the popular thing to do, get over yourselves. We still link to the major dailies in the country on the right hand margin (including the L.A. and New York Times) because it’s free, we don’t fear liberal bias and we, yep, still read them because we know we (and you) are skilled enough readers to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Exit question: For those who are opposed to a bailout of the newspapers on the rationale that newspapers would be fearful of biting the hand that feeds them, how is the current state of journalism, in effect, any different?

UPDATE #1: Fox News has obtained an answering machine message of NYT reporter Stephanie Strom explaining to ACORN whistle-blower, “Anita” that her bosses spiked the story on the Obama/ACORN relationship. Link here, to Hot Air which has the audio of the recording. Also in video clip, Dick Morris recounts how the Times, which originally broke the Clinton/Whitewater scandal, told Morris that they would kill any further investigation if they could get access to an exclusive interview with Bill Clinton for whom Morris worked for at the time. And your tax dollars will be going to preserve this “journalism”?