Category / Journalism

by Edward Champion

Minnesota TV Station Employs Stalinistic Tactics Against Blogger

Star Tribune: “Matt Bartel, owner of the popular MNSpeak blog also was issued an invitation by WCCO, although the station apparently didn’t recognize the name Bartel (ubiquitous in Twin Cities publishing circles) or his business, until the event was about to start. ‘They pulled me out of the auditorium and told me that they’d become aware of the fact that I had a blog,’ Bartel said. ‘They said, ‘We don’t want you to participate,” then offered him a choice: surrender his notebook or leave the event. I wasn’t going to give them my notebook; I had business stuff in there.'”

More from Bartel at his blog, where he confesses that he agreed that he would not talk about the event. This kind of Stalinistic strong-arming is something that no blogger should have to go through, not as long as the First Amendment (or what’s left of it) exists. Bartel was issued an invitation, but, as far as I can tell, there was no agreement in place that suggested he couldn’t write about the event (although there appears to have been an oral promise from WCCO news staffers). In fact, if WCCO was so concerned about public perception from bloggers, why were they idiotic enough to invite a blogger in the first place?

by Edward Champion

Citizen McCaw: “People Will Think What I Tell Them to Think.”

LA Observed: “Things began coming to a head last month when McCaw ordered editor Jerry Roberts to quash coverage of opinion editor Travis Armstrong’s DUI arrest — then named Armstrong interim publisher and authorized him to start editing news stories…..Roberts, a former top editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, was led from the building by Armstong as reporters and editors protested and reportedly shouted ‘Fuck you, Travis.’ McCaw, already estranged from much of the Santa Barbara community over her handling of the paper, now has ravaged what was a high quality, experienced and collegial newsroom.” (via Ghost Word)

More on heiress Wendy McCaw here.

by Edward Champion

Jami Bernard: Case Study for the Decline of Arts Criticism?

Dave Kehr notes (and there is also this followup post) that Jami Bernard, one of the most underrated film critics working today, has not had her contract renewed at the New York Daily News. Kehr speculates that this represents the Daily News getting “rid of one of those pesky, individual voices that keep gumming up the paper’s stated mission to be as bland and toothless as possible.” Kehr also confesses that he experienced considerable editorial interference from top brass and that this move represents an ongoing trend by newspapers to scoop up young interns who will willfully salivate over Hollywood dreck.

Having had a brief stint as a film critic some years ago, I was fortunate not to experience such treatment first-hand. (We online worker bees were permitted considerable lattitude because, even in the eyes of the money men, we were somehow considered “alternative.”) But I did have conversations with some of my print colleagues who reported variations on these battles. I can’t help but dwell on how this reflects a larger trend that we’ll be seeing from the dailies over the next five years as subscriptions plummet and advertising drops. For the arts criticism that remains, will it all come down to hiring starving students straight out of college to patch together a few reviews for peanuts? If it comes down to a climate of inexperienced writers considered as the cultural arbiters, then what hope does more legitimate criticism have in the future? Will the James Woodses, the Jonathan Rosenbaums and the Cynthia Ozicks of our world have to lower their rates to ensure that criticism, at least as reflected in newspapers, is still relevant?

(via 2 Blowhards)

by Edward Champion

Journalistic Kids These Days

David Halberstam on Iraq: “Halberstam, who has written about other presidential administrations and war decisions, isn’t sure he will write about Iraq. ‘Part of me wants younger people to write it,’ yet there is the challenge of figuring out ‘how we have gotten it so wrong and why the Democrats behaved so poorly,’ he said.”

This is a good point. Where are today’s David Halberstams? Why is Seymour Hersh digging up all the dirt (again) while the Believer staffers devote their precious resources to Modest Mouse? For that matter, while this is a start, if Ben Kunkel is hot shit and n+1 represents a new world order, why isn’t he in Tehran right now digging up dirt?