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It all started with a blogger: Last week news broke that budget airline JetBlue was thinking of pulling out of Long Beach Airport (LGB) after their CEO said as much to the blogger behind Crankyflier.com. Although formal meetings are on the books for LGB's Director, Mario Rodriguez, and JetBlue CEO Dave Barger back east later this month, the pair wound up having an impromptu lunch at In-N-Out Burger on Thursday.
Barger had told the blogger he was "upset at the lack of progress on planned terminal improvements at the city's airport set off a storm of controversy," according to the Press-Telegram. Rodriguez, who has been in the role of Director at LGB only since the end of February, has not made public what they discussed during the casual meal. The stakes are high, however, since JetBlue operates just shy of three quarters of the flights leaving LGB daily, and have been a significant part of LGB's success since they began using the airport as a local hub in 2000.
For his part, Brett Snyder, the blogger behind Crankyflier.com, spent his week defending his posting after the Long Beach City Council and the mayor criticized his article, and offered some harsh words about blogging itself, reports the Press-Telegram. The paper quotes Mayor Bob Foster, who said, "We should not take blogs as professional journalism," while Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga added: "This is a blog, give me a break. If we start spending this much time on a blog, we're really in trouble."
As the world of media finds itself in a state of flux, members of the "new" media often find themselves at odds with the brick walls of tradition. The Press-Telegram sought Snyder to explain his perspective:
"I just felt the need to defend blogging," Snyder, a Long Beach resident, said in a phone interview. "There's no question there are a lot of bad blogs out there, and that you have to be careful about where you get your information, but that blanket statement - that we should not be paying attention to blogs - just got to me. There's a lot of good blogs out there."Snyder adds that discrediting the act of blogging doesn't do much to further the conversation between JetBlue and the Long Beach Airport, and, ultimately, to criticize the platform in which the information appeared is irrelevant: "It doesn't matter if this was written on a bathroom wall. It came directly from the CEO of the largest airline at this airport. Does it really do any good to try to discredit blogs or traditional media in the process? No."
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People who attack blogging and new media for reporting on events in a way the real media did before they became so co-opted into the corporate system is just an easy way for them to say, "I will soon be irrelevant."
Blogs have no standards, as evidenced on the -ist blogs on a daily basis. When blogs and bloggers develop a set of standards (oh like say, I don't know, fact checking, grammar, spelling, and other forms of professionalism), they can be taken seriously. But adhering to any kind of professional standards is something blogs just refuse to do, and then they whine and cry when people don't take them seriously.
P.S. If Old media dies, so does "new" media, because more than 95 percent of more of the content on the -ist blogs are just regurgitated cut and paste from the websites of other legitimate news outlets. I mean, you don't think the people who post on the -ist blogs are actually out there hitting the pavement and investigating stories do you??? No, it's more like sitting in their living room surfing the net and copying and reposting what other legitimate news outlets have already reported.
First of all, GoToHell, to make a blanket statement like "blogs have no standards" immediately shows your ignorance; to compound that, you indicate that, based on your perception, the -ist network of sites has no standards. I am fully confident I can assure that you are wholly incorrect in that philosophy; first of all, we are not a "free for all" kind of site--we have rigorous posting guidelines that govern a gamut of standard publication matters including, but not limited to, content, format, scheduling, and attribution of source material. To believe we--LAist, and other -ists collectively and individually--do not, is a naive understanding of how a site like ours works.
One of the issues apparent in the world of "new media"--namely the kind of instantaneous information and its subsequent spreading through viral or networking platforms is the fact that minor errors in things like spelling and grammar do occur. This is the sacrifice online publications sometimes make when they are putting material out on the spot. I'm not excusing poor grammar--believe me, I face it with an alarming frequency and to a degree that makes the occasional flub on our site pale in comparison in my other job as a University-level English professor--but, to flip the coin so to speak, as quickly as we can make the error, we can also fix it, a luxury the presses of traditional media don't have. I know that I am more than happy to fix an error in a post, particularly if it is pointed out politely (rather than to make the point that the writer is ignorant, for example). You might also want to take a look at many recent printings of the LA Times, wherein they have let major errors go unchecked (I'm thinking of the frequent recent printings where headline placeholders are left rather than adjusted for the column content.) Even this hallowed old "legitimate" news outlet makes mistakes. Big ones.
Next, to address the multiple issues raised by your comment "you don't think the people who post on the -ist blogs are actually out there hitting the pavement and investigating stories do you???" I can say two things. First, many times, yes, we are out and about pursuing stories. While most frequently the stories we cover firsthand would be categorized as "feature" (I'm talking about a wide range of stories we run here from concert and restaurant reviews to event coverage and more) we also take as many opportunities as we can to conduct interviews in person, by email, or on the phone, whether it be with someone directly involved in a news story or someone we are featuring or profiling, and, as our schedules allow, we participate in as many news-related events, press conferences, and media opportunities that we can. We do not have the luxury of an expansive or paid staff to send out in the field, nor do we enjoy the level of access many traditional media outlets do, but we are continuing to reach out to, and accept outreach from, a number of local services, institutions, governing bodies, and the like, who are glad to work with us on a regular basis. Secondly, to believe that the traditional media outlets you seem to revere do not themselves source material from others is another naive perception. Allow me to reference two major news services, the Associated Press, and, locally, the City News Service. The bulk of daily news material used by traditional print, radio, and television outlets come from these sources (and lead to the creation and publication of stories that are far less "first hand" than you might believe), along with press releases issued, of which now, you'll be (un?)happy to know, many arrive in our inboxes here at LAist as well.
Those who seek comfort clinging to rules and practice are often left behind as the world moves forward. Such is indeed the case with media today. It is changing--rapidly, at that. We have to be open to accepting that things we thought were immovable, for example the sanctity of the newspaper industry--which, if you'll take a moment to look back in history, did its own fair share of rule breaking and rule making when it became the most common source for news and information, surpassed in succession by radio, then television, now the internet--are not. It's okay to change, and to take pause while the changes are happening to ask questions and consider the causes and consequences, but there is real peril in remaining closed to change at all, as there is peril in trying to make this a black and white "blogs" versus "real" journalism issue. The shades of gray are vast, varied, and vital.
Lindsay I wouldn't worry too much about anything GTH posts. My personal take is s/he is some one who thinks s/he knows everything, but actually don't know shit.
My prediction is that the media outlets that embrace the new technologies and get into info dissemination via mobile hand held devices will do the best. The ones that do it first will be the ones that will come out the big winners.
After that the big fish will eat the little fish, there will be a period of picking and choosing by consumers for preferred political slants, and columnists we'll end up with maybe a half dozen different mega media companies.
As for local online sources like LAist, I think they will do quite well because they are needed.
I don't know how many hits you guys get a day but I would guess that it's a lot. When hot button issues come up for discussion you're likely to get 30-40 comments. That sounds like you're pretty widely read to me.
GoToHell- So there's no middle ground? It is either with us or against us? No blogs that are a shining example of true journalism? No nurturing a movement with great potential? No recognizing the poor moves made by the big players who are unwilling to recognize the loss of some (or much) journalistic integrity?
You should get out more.
"Blogs have no standards, as evidenced on the -ist blogs on a daily basis. When blogs and bloggers develop a set of standards (oh like say, I don't know, fact checking, grammar, spelling, and other forms of professionalism), they can be taken seriously. But adhering to any kind of professional standards is something blogs just refuse to do, and then they whine and cry when people don't take them seriously."
But we should take the Chicago Tribune seriously?
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/at0069_4s.jpg
When blogs start writing their own stories and stop saying things like "according the the NY Post" and stop linking to NBCLocal, and stop lifting full paragraphs word for word, and have staff writers that actually go out and hit the pavement to do original reporting, then blogs can be taken seriously as an original news source. As of now, blogs like the-ist sites, when it comes to real news, are no more than link sources and summary pages of what others have written. Sometimes it's so ridiculous it's just a succesive chain of links from one blog to another until you reach the publication that did the original reporting. For the person who asked are there no good blogs, yes, there are. The Curbed Network. Why? Because they make no pretensions about what they are - Gossip - and they admit it. They do not pretend to be some sort of relevant "Journalism" which -ist sites like to think they are. You are not.
Gee GTH, I see the by line, "Associated Press" in the L.A. Times quite often. So who is this prolific reporter who hits the streets and ferrets out all these news stories. This tireless reporter must never sleep.
Something I also see in the Times is typos, gramatical errors, as well as a little section titled, "For the Record", which is devoted to clearing up, and correcting reporting errors.
As for hard copy print news papers, they are no more relevant that news blogs like LAist. In fact LAist has scooped the big print editions, as well as the TV networks on news stories before.
That's right GTH, the "Big Boys" were coming to them and playing catch up because LAist got there first. I guess in your world that doesn't count as professionalisim though.
Things change. There will always be people who don't like that change for whatever reason.
The hard copy news paper enjoyed their heydays for a long time. Decades in fact. At one time Los Angeles has as many as three or four daily news papers pumping out as many as three editions a day, becuase that was state of the art then. This is state of the art now.
Frankly I think this may be a good thing. Think of all the acres of trees that won't be cut down, processed into news print, (polluting rivers and watersheds), just to satisfy our need to be informed.