What was that, again, about the newspaper folks not freaking out all the time? Why so serious? No sense of humor? Burned over forced furloughs and an uncertain future in your jobs? Jesus.
I thought they paid me no mind and didn’t care what I had to say?
Here’s a cute photo Joe Gerth published:
Who said it was a conspiracy that Chris Poynter favors the Courier-Journal and makes an effort to give the paper materials and information well in advance of all other outlets? I think the fact that he immediately called a C-J reporter after this outlet and others filed open records requests speaks wonders to the relationship. But no one has ever suggested it was a conspiracy. Media favoritism and collusion exists and it’s silly to sit in denial over that reality.
Here are the comments that followed:
CLICK TO ENLARGE
What’s with all that paranoia about WFPL? It’s a real shame that the paper can’t respect one of the most solid outlets of journalism – WFPL – in the country.
I have never in my life seen a bunch of adults freak out over something as silly as The ‘Ville Voice. How can a simple little website rattle them so deeply?
I especially love it when those folks complain about “the blogs” while they know damn well they get 95% (the lazy ones, anyway) of their stories from “the blogs.” They call sources to complain when they come to “the blogs” first. And act as if “the blogs” can’t ever break a story, get insider information or have sources that function without the aid of the mainstream.
Yep, it’s all silliness and in good fun. But the reactions are quite telling.
13 responses so far ↓
1 Bill // Jun 9, 2011 at 2:07 pm
The funny thing is that they’re the ones whining about the blogs and the various websites but that is where they get their information. The Kentucky Newspaper has went from being a first class media organization back in the 1950s through 1970s and now has became just bird cage liner. Its sad because at one time it was one of the better urban newspapers prior to Gannett taking over. It says something about quality when they can’t come up with their own stories and have to take from others sites. Then again, like much of city government they know about organized theft on a grand scale. Just look at MSD for a start of organized corruption and bureaucratic obfuscation of the facts.
Even more amusing is that WFPL has quite a good station and news reporting is quite good. Wonder when the print media will catch up? No wonder the newspaper is becoming in many ways that of the dinosaur. They are about as clueless as the young earth creationists saying that dinosaurs and prehistoric animals simply didn’t exist.
2 jake // Jun 9, 2011 at 2:11 pm
What are you talking about?
They DIDN’T EXIST. Jeez.
3 Bill // Jun 9, 2011 at 2:32 pm
The point I was making is that I was poking fun at the young earth creationists and the people saying that dinosaurs didn’t exist. As if it was a made up fantasy of someone’s. The fossil record obviously shows that they did exist. Just poking fun at the fundies, thats all.
4 jake // Jun 9, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Click that link. You’ll see I was doing the same.
5 Bill // Jun 9, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Gotcha, I checked it out. The fundies and the newspaper industry are much the same, they don’t want to realize that the new media is kicking them in the pants. So instead of realizing that and modifying their operations they would rather that it doesn’t exist. Yet what is so comical is that they occasionally bring up references to that media in order to try to minimize its impact.
6 Roger // Jun 9, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Can you even contact the CJ with a story anymore? I tried to send them a ‘local girl does good’ story awhile back and I couldn’t find any contact info to send it to.
7 garyguss // Jun 9, 2011 at 3:12 pm
CJ, It’s basically a wrapper for USA Today isn’t it?
8 Steve Magruder // Jun 9, 2011 at 3:58 pm
…or for fish. heh.
9 Cavemouse // Jun 9, 2011 at 9:41 pm
Using the CJ to funnel stories from the Mayor’s office goes back a long way and it goes both ways. On the web site accessed by Metro employees, Metro Net,just about all the announcements/stories link to the CJ site. We have multiple PIOs and not one can write on their own.
10 Bill // Jun 9, 2011 at 9:45 pm
Frankly, the employees of the mayor’s office probably also are some of the CJ commenters you see online posting comments ridiculing criticisms of the Greg Fischer/Jerry Abramson regime. Somehow that wouldn’t surprise me
11 Michael Lindenberger // Jun 10, 2011 at 10:27 am
I read the ville voice from time to time because I am a Louisville news junkie and basically wish there 10 more sites talking about the city’s news.
Living elsewhere and in a place with a tremendously robust online community, I lament the relative thinness of the online journalism in my home town.
Still, Sometimes I think there’s a parallel universe where some of my fellow readers and our intrepid host, Jake, exist, however. This post and the comments to it are a case in point.
First, the facebook comments were light-hearted teasing between old friends. They neither prove nor disprove Jake’s theory that city hall favors the CJ with advance notice of stories.
Second: What to make of Bill’s dismissal of the CJ? Of course the CJ has been scaled back, like most newspapers, but you cite the MSD management issues, but leave out James Bruggers coverage that has helped highlight those very problems. It doesn’t take a fanboy to realize that Bruggers is a class act, and a national-caliber journalist. And he’s hardly alone at the CJ (where I used to but no longer, work.)
As for the blogs’ role in the news cycle: It’s overstated here.
PS I mentioned this site in the facebook chatter as a joke, and figured it’d be too much to resist for Jake. The telling reaction is yours.
12 jake // Jun 10, 2011 at 11:08 am
Actually, what’s telling is that so many local reporters who aren’t affiliated with Gannett begged us to post this. So I did.
What’s more telling is what I didn’t say about people like Jason Riley. And that I didn’t bring up Klepal’s melt down in the comments here. Or that C-J reporters think other outlets like WFPL are out to get them. And who could forget the time Joe Gerth publicly called me a liar and five seconds later I was able to provide proof that C-J reporters had been calling me? Yeah. Whatever.
I think the relationship the mayor’s office has with the paper is pretty widely recognized. We’ve written about it how many times? I’ve published first-hand accounts how many times? Other media gossip about it how frequently? Right. There’s no sense in denying it or acting like it’s silly to discuss.
I’m just disappointed that I like and respect several C-J folks. Otherwise there’s way more I’d be posting and talking about.
Especially enjoy it when folks come here to say how overstated our reach is. Also love it when C-J staffers sometimes spend ten hours per day refreshing this site and Page One.
The bitterness from C-J folks toward other media outlets in town is beyond bizarre. You don’t see that sort of behavior from the Herald-Leader or the various television outlets in Kentucky. Everyone else in this town has a nice working relationship. It’s the C-J (some folks there, not all by any means) that continually causes drama, complains, melts down and goes insane on their colleagues who don’t work for the paper.
13 The Highlander // Jun 10, 2011 at 12:11 pm
Jake: The problem of which you speak is common to Louisville in my multi-decade experience. The CJ ‘leadership’ (assuming it can be called that) as well as the River Road crown and other (as they are referenced) “stakeholders in the community” (in reality meaning ‘important folk’) are and have always been quite jealous and protective of their hegemony in this city. The purpose is a childish one — in my judgment — but it still exists. That purpose is to establish a series of ‘gates’ through which one must pass in order to be ‘accepted’ or ‘approved’ as a ‘leader’, here. Anyone who stands alongside that genre and expresses opinions that aren’t acceptable to that little clique of folk – is, simply, not accepted and all sorts of obsequious efforts will be undertaken to undercut any influence such folk may be achieving.
The examples are multiple. John Y Brown Jr wasn’t accepted by Barry B. Jr., and he used to carry around on of Barry Jr.’s editorials entitled “Keep your chicken coop in Nashville” when Brown decided to bring KFC’s hdqts to Louisville. In the early 70s Wendell Cherry experienced considerable difficulty with the ‘powers that be’ because he had a ‘vision’ of Louisville that didn’t include a ‘white picketed fence’ surrounding it.
So — what you’re experiencing isn’t anything new. It’s a part of the city’s culture — that fashions itself as one of ‘exclusion’ from leadership roles rather than ‘inclusion’ of a differing opinion.
In other words — “diversity” is only skin deep around here.
How ’bout that to contemplate on????
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