« Claremont To Go Even Greener? | Home | Understatement of the Week UPDATED »
Don’t Ride Your Bike On Grumpy Old Man Roderick’s Yard
By Publius | July 24, 2007
Kevin Roderick takes another shot at us today in response to my post from yesterday on anonymity, blogging, and journalism:
No thanks
The San Gabriel Valley anony-blogger(s?) who calls himself (themselves?) Publius tries to draw me into a public dialogue about anonymity by claiming some higher principle to masking his (their?) identity(ies?) — evading the personal accountability that most political bloggers and journalists face every day and hiding whatever conflicts of interest, biases and financial or political motives might lie behind his (their?) blind accusations against city officials.
Blah, blah, blah. Personal accountability, eh? Do we know how advertising dollars can and sometimes do affect local papers? That story doesn’t make the—oh, wait a tick—papers much.
Do most people know the “conflicts of interest, biases, and financial or political motives” of most reporters? If we did know such things, (hell, when we do know such things) we know that reporters would (and do) whine and cry about how it doesn’t affect their work. Like when the ethics columnist for the NY Times recently said “he thought of MoveOn.org as nonpartisan” when he financially supported that organization.
We all stand in different places politically, but only journalists are arrogant enough to think that this somehow doesn’t affect their work. Yet I bet many a journalist is quick to write off a blogger on account of whatever normal “bias” might be detected, “bias” no doubt arising from the fact that they are a human being.
Give me a break. The L.A. journalistic establishment has been in bed with Antonio V for a long while now. This recent Mirthala Salinas scandal is a friggin’ metaphor for the last few years of press on our Mayor. The fact that the L.A. press didn’t report and didn’t even want to know that the Mayor was sleeping with a prominent member of the press who was reporting on him is pathetic. The fact that some members of the press act as if they have to hold their nose while reporting all this is just plain sad. Talk to me about the virtues of personal accountability some more, Kevin.
The larger question here concerns trust, and to gain trust you must earn it. Anonymity has severe limits and begs questions, but one can still earn trust while anonymous. Let the free market of readership decide who sinks and who swims. It sure looks like the LAT and friends are sinking, don’t it? We’ll reveal who we are whenever the hell we feel like it, and if someone else does it first, whatever. We reveal our opinions, however, (unlike reporters) almost every day without ever bowing down to the false god of “objectivity.”
I don’t know what Roderick means by our (there are only two of us, Kevin: Publius and Centinel) “blind accusations against city officials.” I’d guess he means the whole Pomona incident. How would he know if we were “blind” when we alerted the public to accusations made by others (we didn’t make them up)? Hell, if we were “real” journalists how would anyone know if we were “blind” if our sources remained anonymous? What, because an editor gave us the green light that makes it OK? And why would we trust said journalist to judge among such spinning sources, unless we had seen that in the past that journalist wasn’t “blind.” And I’ll point out again that we face the same consequences as said journalist in a lawsuit if we overstep our bounds.
While I don’t know what Kevin means by our supposed “blind accusations,” I do know that we just scooped the SGVT on who the top candidate for City Manager of Sierra Madre is; I do know that we broke the no-show Nell Soto story that the recent Jonathan Abrams LAT article referred to. I do know that most of the time we are simply having fun talking about whatever we want so long as it relates in some way to the Foothill Cities.
I do have a financial bias, however, that I would like to disclose to you all:
I would love it if I could spend more time on this thing and get paid to do it.
Alright, the horse is beaten, time to move on. I still love L.A. Observed, but I think Kevin’s hatred of anonymity is a tad overdone.
Last 5 posts in Media
- Local Journalism Flourishing? Ad Revenue Still Plummeting? - July 23rd, 2008
- Fire Blogging in Big Sur - July 8th, 2008
- Pasadena Websites With Imperial Ambitions - July 8th, 2008
- Farewell, Ed Barrera - July 4th, 2008
- It Hurts to Be a Journalist - July 1st, 2008
Topics: Media, Pomona, Sierra Madre |
July 24th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Layeth the smacketh down!
July 24th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
If you can, try digging up a copy of “Assignment in Utopia” by Eugene Lyons. It chronicles his years of life in Moscow as a foreign correspondent and how he and the other members of the foreign press covered up the brutal crimes of the Stalinist era.
July 24th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Try digging up a copy of “Assignment In Utopia” by Eugene Lyons. It chronicles his years as a foreign correspondant in Moscow during the thirties and how the foreign press ignored or covered up the brutal crimes commited by Stalin.
July 24th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Tell us what you really think; stop hiding behind the niceties.
July 24th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
The world has finally discovered who can defeat the force that buys ink by the barrel: those who buy it by the pixel!
July 24th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
He should be SPANKED! Jim where are you…
July 24th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
[…] Don’t Ride Your Bike On Grumpy Old Man Roderick’s Yard […]
July 24th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
When I first moved to Pasadena in 2001 (from Denver) I subscribed to the LAT for a year. Denver was one of the last real two-daily towns (no longer, sadly, though they make a pretense at it), and I read both. After the LAT quickly started piling up in the back seat of my car unread (had to get it out of the driveway, lest some passerby think I was out of town) with the exception of Saturday’s sports section to check out the (bad) picks for Santa Anita, I let my subscription lapse. I then subscribed to PSN for a year, hoping their horse picks were better… they weren’t. So, I’ve been totally print media free for 4 years now. I just discovered FCBlog a few weeks ago, and I never miss a day. Thank you.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
No Eric, thank YOU! Help us spread the word.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:01 am
I understand your reluctance to name yourselves but would sure like to see you hold the PSN and SGVT to the fire more. I’ve hated both of these cowardly papers for years.
After the laughable recent opinion piece in the SGVT about spending more money on gang devirsion programs we see six people shot, two dead, at a party in Rancho. Wonder what kind of program would have helped the shooter reconsider his ways? Research their effectiveness and who runs them, they are simply a waste of money.
Now Pomona, the gang capital of the Eastern SGV wants to develop more of a night life? It will be a magnet for gangsters and other scum, a really bad idea. The dope and gang problems in the SGV are so under reported it’s amazing.
Local Boy
July 25th, 2007 at 7:22 am
http://www.pasadenalivingmagazine.com/Video/proctor.html
July 25th, 2007 at 10:23 am
[…] Don’t Ride Your Bike On Grumpy Old Man Roderick’s Yard […]
March 22nd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Hello everybody, my name is Damion, and I’m glad to join your conmunity,
and wish to assit as far as possible.