blogging.la Lies About LAist, Refuses to Correct It

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Some people hate the truth. They look at the scoreboard and they hate what they see. They look at themselves and they hate what they see. They look at others having success and they hate that too.

Last night blogging.la did the right thing and they linked to our post about my resignation from LAist due to my new gig at the LA Times. Because the blogosphere is what it is, a small group of anonymous snarks tried to belittle this historic and wonderful news, and because I am who I am I gave them a retort that some of you have become familiar with.

But the last thing I expected was to see the blogging.la Editor resort to speculation and bold-faced lies based on nothing. Nor did I expect him to ignore my requests to simply ask me how we got our hits that have led us to our amazing ranking on Technorati and our millions of page views.

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The truth of the matter is although Gossip is a big deal on the web, and when done right like Trent does over at PinkisthenewBlog or Defamer does in a very different way, you can get a ton of hits. And even though a lot of the stories happen here in LA, it would be fair game.

But I was never interested in steering this ship that way. I felt that there was plenty of Britney coverage everywhere, so why obsess over her. We did throw her a bone when she shaved off her hair, but we actually had more coverage of her music than her drama. Hell we even saw her show at the House of Blues as the M + M's (so you wouldn't have to.)

LAist doesn't even have a Gossip category and what little gossip coverage that we deliver is usually just simple round-ups posted up by Corey Podell who barely bangs those out once a week - if that. We do have a Celebrity category, and if you look at it, it's far from the gossip that you will find elsewhere, outside of the occasional lists described above.

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So go ahead and "strip away" gossip from LAist and our numbers would barely be effected as they account for such a tiny fraction of what we do here.

As for our non-LA coverage. For some reason this has been a major bone of contention for our competitors. Just because they're obsessed with limiting themselves, they go crazy when we allow ourselves to take a road trip, or cover the music industry when it convenes in NY or Austin. I will never apologize for the fact that 95% of what you read in LAist is specifically about LA because I'm pretty sure the number is higher than that. And never did we say that everything here was going to solely be about LA County, nor would I recommend that we ever paint ourselves into such a foolish corner.

Residents of LA travel as much, if not more, than citizens of other major cities. We are the biggest population of tourists to The OC, Las Vegas, San Diego, and Santa Barbara, and to ignore those cities would be ridiculous. For starters.

But since Dave Markland isn't interested in answering his phone, his email, or his chat window, that is clearly active; and since he is unwilling to edit a fucking comment to better reflect the truth, here are 25 of the most popular stories that LAist had in 2007 that blogging.la should have also covered, but didn't, and if they did, we did it better, and were rewarded with way more hits. Scoreboard:

- OC Cop Gets Off After Masturbating on Stripper 2/10
- Spring Undie Run Photo Essay - 3/22
- Ugg! Enough! - 4/26
- Charcoal Opens, Forgets to Make Food - 5/9
- Flickr's New Censorship Program - 5/18
- MTV Movie Awards Photo Essay - 6/3
- When Your Favorite Novel Turns into a Terrible Hollywood Movie - 6/21
- Kwik-E-Mart comes to Burbank - 7/2
- Staircase to Nowhere - 8/4
- Cheapest Valet in LA - 8/4
- Phil Spector Trial Field Trip - 8/9
- Golden Gals Gone Wild - 8/12
- Kayaking in the LA River - 8/14
- Manhattan Beach Six Man Tournament Photo Essay - 8/15
- Beverly Hills SUV Hits Cyclist, Only Cyclist Gets a Ticket 9/4
- Beverly Hills Cops Serves LAist with a Search Warrant Over SUV Incident - 9/10
- MTV VMA Red Carpet Photo Essay - 9/12
- The Larchmont Lizard - 9/22
- Hollywood Bus Driver Hits Cyclist, Only Cyclist Arrested - 9/24
- On-set Interview with Greg Grunberg of "Heroes" - 9/25
- Sheriff Deputies May Have Arrested You Because of Game - 10/4
- Application for the Most Exclusive Bar in LA - 11/8
- Porn Stars Teach UC Irvine Class on Sexuality - 11/13
- 50 Foot Woman Attacks Venice - 11/28
- Sex is Safer in Nevada Brothels than Porn Sets - 11/30

Which is to say nothing of the fact that our best month traffic wise happened when we went to every damn Thai Restaurant in Thai Town (and a few more for extra credit), or our ongoing Neighborhood Project, or our continuing coverage of the WGA strike which certainly stands up to anyone else's.

We have run circles around those who dare consider us peers, and we did it by covering LA better, going to more concerts than anyone, taking better pictures, covering the right stories, marketing ourselves better, and adjusting to the ever-changing nature of the blogosphere better than most which are all the real reasons that we now find ourselves in the upper 1% of the most popular blogs of today. Hell we had 37 posts on Thanksgiving alone including one from Mike freakin Watt.

To allege that our success is due to gossip and stories outside of our bread and butter is proof that you aren't paying attention to the leader and you're desperately grasping at straws. And to refuse to correct your bullshit when you have been proven wrong explains why you aren't anywhere near us in hits, prestige, power, or influence. And the scary thing is, LAist has just begun to blog.

So again, I invite you to set the record straight, since the above cannot be denied, or feel free to continue to act like a scorned jealous adversary who has clearly been left in the dust .

top photo by manmadepants via the LAist Featured Photos, middle photo by LAist Photo Editor Joey Maloney at the WGA strike at Fox, photo of Stephen Box being handcuffed after being hit by a bus by his wife Enci