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GateHouse vs. Globe, Lite edition
By adamg on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 3:28pm
If you publicly refer to a Globe reporter's story as the sort of crap that would entitle one of your own readers to kick your sorry behind, don't be surprised if the Globe reporter fires back (click for the media insults, but stay for Geoff Edgers's mea culpa on the second half of the story).
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Comments
Kat fight
There's nothing like a good Kat fight.
nasty swipe
When a Globe reporter starts his post responding to criticism in a Somerville community paper with "Apparently, some person named Kat Powers," you know it struck a raw nerve.
Maybe we're all a bit short-tempered right now. I'm sure it isn't easy to be working at the Globe these days.
"Some person," as in "some
"Some person," as in "some unworthy person..." Sounds like he learned English from Victorian novels.
"Charles... how could you have anything to do with that.... that.. creature!
When they hire them at the Globe, they must require them to watch ten years of Masterpiece Theatre to develop that attitude. Next, he'll start wearing bow-ties.
and don't forget
"Apparently"
Nothing "apparent" about it: Kat Powers took issue with his column!
The added nastiness is that I'm sure he understands the status issues between the Globe and the Somerville Journal. It's an I'm-putting-you-in-your-place post.
Status issues?
The only status issue I know of is that I actually occasionally "buy" a Gatehouse media paper (I live in Watertown, so it's the Tab here), and I wouldn't give a wooden nickel for the Globe anymore.
Geoff Edgers is merely a symptom of the Globe's descent into utter irrelevance.
In defense of Geoff
Yes, I'm going to say something good about the Globe: Would we have known as much as we do about the Rose Art Museum issue without his coverage?
Well, that's a tautology.
Well, that's a tautology. The real question: Would someone have complained about it and would someone at the Globe have written about it? Yes and yes. In any case, it doesn't really have anything to do with this article nor his childish response to it.
The fact that Edgers ended up the one writing about the art museum only underscores, to me, the fact that he shouldn't be "dabbling" (as he puts it) in subjects beyond his limited depth and reach.
thanks, Geoff
A little while ago I received an e-mail from Geoff Edgers, explaining why he reacted the way he did to Kat Powers' critique. (One of my comments here caused him to look up my e-mail address on my UH bio.) It was an honest explanation, he pointed out that he wrote for several community newspapers before joining the Globe staff, and even though he obviously took issue with one of my comments, he was very cordial.
Yes, newspaper folks (like bloggers!) must have thick skins. But after reading a couple of the over-the-top, flaming responses to his blog posting, I was reminded of what he has to deal with all the time, whenever he puts his words out there. So I give him a lot of credit for his willingness to engage a reader on a personal level.
So when a reporter gets mad
So when a reporter gets mad enough to hunt you down by e-mail address, then personally discusses why he wrote something asinine and insulting, we now just feel *his* pain and excuse it? Lame. If he had any real dignity or integrity as a pro, he'd pipe down and take his very well-deserved licks. Writing e-mails to readers has nothing to do, factually or otherwise, with what he wrote in the first place, and if he can't take the heat, he's in the wrong kitchen. I give him credit for having nice hair; it's about as relevant. Hunting you down sounds creepy, not professional. But it's good to know the pressure's getting to him.
Incidentally, what "over-the-top, flaming" responses are you referring to that hurt poor Geoff? I didn't see any. I saw many that were scathingly on-target about a bad article and a worse blog posting. I certainly saw *him* being over-the-top and flaming.
He didn't hunt me down
anon, my e-mail address is on my UH bio -- he wasn't hunting me down. We traded several e-mails and finished on very good terms. I think we both benefitted from the exchange as well.
The "mea culpa": "I should
The "mea culpa": "I should have been more careful about revealing what I think of the lower classes."
Two questions on news editors in 2009
1. Do blog posts require editor approval?
2. Should editors be allowed to have blogs?
Partial answer to one question
Kat Powers is the editor of the Somerville Journal. A number of GateHouse editors have blogs on their newspaper sites.
Two answers on news editors in 2009
1. Depends. At my former site, we generally edited after the fact, because we only let people blog whom we had some reasonable faith in (such as, well, editors).
2. Sure, why not? But only if a) they want to and b) they'd be good at it. The two usually go together - somebody who doesn't want to just isn't going to be all that good at it.
Wondering, here
Y'know how a reporter, when they *have* to refer to themself in a real news piece, will typically write "a reporter"? I think there's a place for even gratuitous displays of separating the reporter from the news. Becoming a personality (like a columnist) means potentially tainting the news with a personal image that must be maintained. Let the work speak for itself, and even suffer if professionalism means you can't say everything you wish you could say.
I'm thinking aloud; I really don't know. Perhaps all journalists will soon become reporter-columnist hybrids, with accessible characters, and everyone dumping into blog-like formats, and maybe that won't be so bad. But definitely that should be done consciously, and I hope that people who understand the rationales for how things have been done historically, and can reason about same, are having some influence on the direction we go.
Stick to Reporting, Spare the Stunts
When I read that original article, I wondered why the hell he bothered with the UPS "dirty second jobs" stunt. That's because the reporting about OTHER people who had no choice or no reasonable choice but to moonlight was fairly strong and stood alone.
At best, some packages got delivered. At worst? He caricatured the very people he sought to showcase. The whole stunt brought the entire story down to the ridiculousness of dabbling in reality.
I'm not sure who to blame here however - does Edgers just come up with this stuff and go for it? Or was there an editor who pushed him into an absurd assignment? I think it would have been far better for him to shadow a person in this situation for an entire day, rather than pretend that he could learn anything or teach anything from the lets pretend.
Oh, I wasn't so much talking
Oh, I wasn't so much talking about this in particular. I think it was a minor goof, and I used it as an excuse to think about bigger questions of journalism.
I agree about sparing the stunts. Stunts are for TV.
I could see how this happened: thought that it might give insight, did it, wrote it up, turned out readers didn't think they learned anything from what looked like a stunt and would have preferred never hearing about it.
Score for readers. Which is a good sign for written journalism. :)