Monday, July 25, 2005

The Columbus Leftist-Enquirer, Part II

Well, well, well. Seems the local paper, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer gave a rat's ass about what I wrote back in February. In that post, I was critical of their taking an Associated Press piece about blogs and not bothering to do a local tie-in.
There are blogs around here, but the paper did nothing to tie in any local angle. Lots of papers do local tie-ins. For instance, they might take an AP piece, then may add a paragraph or two near the bottom that ties it in to something local, then under the column put "Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane contriubuted to this piece" or something of the sort. But the local daily didn't even do that.
Well, I don't know if they thought I was complaining about no mention of this little blog or not. But I wasn't. I was complaining about sloppy reporting. Or the lack of reporting.

I used to do news, but it was radio news. Maybe they don't consider that news. But, I tell you what's not news: sitting on your ass. Something is only news if it's unusual or not the norm. But, from what I see, there's a lot of "sitting on your ass" going on at the Ledger-Enquirer.

Heck, all I suggested they do in my previous post is do a Yahoo! or Google search for area blogs. I even provided the link. All they had to do was click on it. But that must be too much work for the Jimmy Olsens and Clarke Kents in downtown Columbus.

What brought this rant up again? An article in the Sunday, July 17, 2005 Ledger-Enquirer. It was in their "Buzz" section, which is a section for middle-school and high-school students.

I'm not criticizing them for "The Buzz." I think it's good to get students involved in, well, just about everything. But, if you are going to work with children, why not teach them right?

The July 17 Buzz had a nice article on blogs. And, it was written by Buzz staff writer Erick Richman. It gave a little bit of the history of blogs and the term "blog." Overall, a good article. As good as what I've seen written by adults. But it lacked something: a local tie-in.

Nobody at the Ledger-Enquirer thought to suggest this? All news is local. You sometimes need to remember that. So, where's the local angle? Having a local person write it? Hate to say it, fellas, but that don't cut it.

There are plenty of blogs out there in the Columbus/Phenix City/Auburn/Opelika area. Oh, not as many as you'll find in Atlanta. But a lot.

The Yahoo! search I provided returned, among others The Blog of Columbus, Georgia and Core|Blog. Google, of course, returned this little blog. Clicking on those would have revealed other blogs. And they all have e-mail links. I don't know Richard, who does "The Blog of Columbus, Georgia," but I suspect he wouldn't mind talking with them. Corey is in the media business himself. Just not newspaper. If he wouldn't talk with them, a click on his blogroll would reveal other area blogs. No, not this little blog, but others. And, had they contacted me, I'd have pointed them to some good local blogs.

Now, in fairness, I have linked to stories they've published before. And I excerpted pieces from a column that one of their sports columnists wrote when he was making the same point I was making. Great minds, huh? So, they do good sometimes. Okay, lots of times. But in this instance, they did the very thing I mentioned before ... on the same topic!

I'm not looking to get in the local paper. I've been in the local paper. Posed picture and everything. But not about blogs or computers or anything like that. So, no, I'm not looking for any publicity from them. Heck, according to Technorati, I have 20 times the links they have. Maybe if they did their job, I'd link to them more. And write something nice about them.

7 comments:

  1. I've been saying it for years, the best thing the CLE is for is wrapping dead fish.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You know why this is, Basil; it is because you and the rest of the bloggosphere are a threat to their very existence. If people in your area were to recognize your URL on a "household name" basis, the advertizers would have better reason to do biz with you versus the local paper. You are their competitor and they are scared to death of your growing power as a blogger, as well as the growing power of the bloggosphere as a whole.

    The newspapers now only offer "yesterday's news" for sale with a biased slant, while blogs offer multiple slants on the same news... as it breaks. Newspapers are quickly becoming a thing of the past. They've had a good run, but it's over.

    Blog ON, friend. Every day puts another nail in their coffins :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. GTL:
    Well, I don't know that I'm part of any threat to them. However, it wouldn't surprise me that there is a lack of understanding about blogs in general in newspapers, including the Columbus paper.

    They made a cutesy comment on my previous post. At least I hope it was a cutesy remark and not a serious one. If it was ... Oh, I better not go there. The implications are ... staggering.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Touche- all you have dome is pointed out exactly what they haven't done.

    All in the public record, as they say.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I really think it's a matter of both things, Basil; considering blogs to be competition, especially due to their lack of understanding of the bloggosphere, and what it's all about.

    BTW - thanks again for the "linkie-luv", my friend. Blog ON...

    ReplyDelete
  6. I can explain this situation in two words

    Knight Ridder

    they own a bunch of papers. too many as far as I am concerned. Including my hometown "Fish Wrap with good sports page" I would subscribe to it, if they would strip the rest of the crap out of it and only gave me the sports, but they refused to do that. :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. SCA, GTL:
    Thanks.

    M23:
    It's not just here, like you said. And it's not just newspapers. The NBC channel here doesn't ever bother to do news. And the radio stations here, mostly owned by big corps, quite frankly, suck. Not necessarily what they play, but the poor quality of a broadcast. I've run a radio board. It's not that hard. As many screw-ups as I hear just driving to and from work, I'd fire the lot of them.

    ReplyDelete

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