Henican: The perils of bathrobe reporting
Facts are pesky little things.
They have this maddening habit of refusing to present themselves.
Often — and I know this from many years of wrestling facts as newspaper reporter and columnist — you have to go outside and grab the jumpy suckers one by one. Then, you have to shine a light in their eyes and slap ’em upside the head, stunning them long enough for the rest of the world to get a good, clear view and start to figure out exactly what these particular facts might mean.
Whew!
I’m not complaining here. Fact-hunting, often called “reporting,” is a noble and rewarding occupation, although not so much monetarily any more. But it sure isn’t quick or easy. I promise you that much. And it sure isn’t cheap.
What’s cheap is some self-absorbed nitwit sitting in front of a computer in his bathrobe, stealing the facts that some hard-working, low-paid newspaper drone just spent hours collecting.
Then, Bathrobe Boy tosses off a condescending comment or two about those stolen facts, throwing in a few dismissive pokes at the fact-chasing newspaper dinosaur who did all the grunt work of discovery.
You want to know about the current state of the news business? That’s where the news business is today.
The people who gather the facts — the vast, vast majority of them still employed in the ink-on-paper world, even though their stories now also appear on the Internet — are watching in horror as their beloved business collapses and all the preening Bathrobe Boys declare themselves “The Future.”
Hell, maybe they are.
But get back to me — will you? — when all these New Media outlets achieve the cash flow and the attention span and the social conscience to sit through a three-week trial at the courthouse, prowl the corridors of power with a notebook, read the agenda of every zoning meeting, climb the housing-project stairway before the body is cold, stand outside the precinct in the rain until the perp is walked — all to gather some facts.
The Bathrobe Boys may do the hard work one day. They haven’t done it yet.
And that’s just a fact.
Comments (5)
Wow, Ellis, bitter much? First off, I fail to understand how the snark-filled, unfunny columns you spin out are any different from what most bloggers do, except that you get paid much, much better to do it.
"What’s cheap is some self-absorbed nitwit sitting in front of a computer in his bathrobe..." "preening Bathrobe Boys..."
Again, wow. It would be a different story if there was an ounce of sarcasm present in your writing, but you seem to be dead serious, which indicates that you're also very very threatened.
Maybe if "reporters" actually did the fact-checking that you hold in such high regard, bloggers wouldn't be driving you out of business. Instead, your high and mighty journalists have chosen in countless instances to basically ignore, twist, or flat-out fabricate "facts" to fit your agenda.
That is the primary reason that you're about to become obsolete, because you've stopped doing the job that people pay you for, to report the unbiased, unspun facts. The public no longer trusts the media to give them the truth, and for good reason. At this point, newspapers are one step above US Weekly in terms of credibility and the level of "news" that you report, and you're fading fast.
Good riddance.
Half the time those "bathroom boys" give said story a bigger profile than it would have originally.
And for all the tough talk, why are there no examples of such theft, but rather the usual MSM drivel.
Well, you haven't been reading Atlantic Yards Report, which is beating the dailies with coverage like this:
http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2008/12/chuck-ratner-repudiates-cousin-bruces.html
and reminding people of all the stories missed:
http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2008/12/dozen-atlantic-yards-stories-that-have.html
Admittedly, I can only do AYR because I have another full-time job, but it's journalism on a blog platform, not stealing other people's facts.
Going by the "attacking" comments here I can only think that Henican hit a tender, yet real nerve.
I'm old enough to have been raised to read the newspaper, yet young enough that I have been in technology most of my life.
The bloggers definitely represent something good. However, the "free" model of the internet has definitely done some serious damage to the newspapers, and without the real reporters out there, the ones doing the work...I seriously have to wonder if 95% of the "news" bloggers out there will continue to exist.
When they're parasitical that's one thing...but if they take on the "virus" model and end up killing their host then they die off as well.
Just my opinion
ellis is 100% right. bloggers arent reporters. all they do is comment and snark on someone elses reporting or story. all they do is link to someone elses reporting.