I don't know how many old movies had some guy run from the editor's office through the news room, down a couple flights of stairs, through a big factory type door, and into the loud, chaotic, dirty, busy printing shop of the paper, to shout at the top of his lungs, "STOP THE PRESSES!"Then you'd hear all these noises slowly respond, one at a time, to the order. Eventually there'd be silence, as some grizzled guy in a halibut cap and greasy coveralls, holding a big crescent wrench, would walk up to the well-dressed junior cub reporter, and say "This better be good, kid." Or something like that.
Sometime in the summer of 2006, when Ann Coulter was shopping her book, Godless - The Church of Liberalism, around the country, the Anchorage Daily News gave this prominent racist space on the lower fold of page A1. I was disturbed enough to write a letter to the editor, complaining about this lapse of good taste. Many, more important stories, had been delegated to pages A2 through A7.
I sent the letter by e-mail. Two days later, getting home late from work, there was a message from the letter person at the ADN on my answering service. I called back the next morning. The ADN editors objected to my letter's categorization of Coulter as a "slut." The letter editor agreed that the term might be accurate, but was name-calling, and requested that I edit the term out. I thanked her, said I'd get back with a revision, and consulted with my friends at firedoglake.
We discussed the letter there. Among the suggested substitutes for "slut" were liar, cheesy-headed, fact-challenged, un-American, piece of excrement, Ho for the Administration, Rove mouthpiece, poster girl for hate and racial slurs, unpatriotic rabble-rouser, harpy, whore,
merchant of hate, scrofulous narcissist - I liked that one for pure accuracy, Nazi bitch, and on and on...
I settled on "meretricious purveyor of calumny," and e-mailed the new letter to the ADN. Just over two weeks after I submitted the initial letter, the final version was printed.
Since that time, the ADN has moved right along. Over the past five months or so, they've added blogs, the Daily Newsreader, and comment sections at the end of locally-produced articles. Additionally, and this is very important to the future of the ADN, a culture of responsibility and information sharing seems to be growing in their blogs' comment communities.
The best example of that I've seen so far are the comments provided to Kyle Hopkins' pre-Thanksgiving blog entry about a Washington Post story that, in Kyle's words, was "about a court ruling that Justice Department says could cripple their investigations of members of Congress." The discussion of the implications of the court ruling and the Washington Post article in the blog comments was much more informative than the WaPo article itself. This is an example of how blogging by mature people with knowledge about and interest in a subject is becoming a very viable form of communication.
But, just as the communities of commenters at the Daily News and at other traditional media outlets are growing - and growing up - on the web, so too are blogs with no affiliation to the old-school forms. There are many examples every day. When Don Young's communication director calls me, it isn't because I'm discussing something I'm writing about that I discovered at the ADN's site. It is because I've published new information, or done that BEFORE it was reported elsewhere.
Yesterday's most interesting local example of how blogs lead the news more and more was the spread of information of the demise of Anchorage Assemblyman Paul Bauer's pro-hate ordinance. At 8:49 a.m. Independent Alaskan published the headline Public testimony postponed until next year. That was followed by the statement "[m]y sources indicate that public testimony on the anti-sanctuary ordinance in Anchorage will be postponed until January 22, 2008."
I picked up the story and linked the Independent Alaskan article at 4:26 p.m. At 11:48 p.m. Kyle Hopkins posted an entry at the ADN Alaska Politics blog, in which he stated "In a surprise move Tuesday night, the Assembly voted 8-3 to postpone indefinitely a proposal from Assemblyman Paul Bauer that would let police ask you for proof of U.S. citizenship." [my emphasis added]
At 1:10 a.m. today, Steve Aufrecht had an excellent article up on the Assembly meeting at What Do I know? By the time I read today's ADN, the story of the demise of Bauer's racist legislation had been out in the community for over 24 hours. But the Wednesday print edition of the ADN fails to mention this important story, with the Alaska section's Hopkins article concentrating on the ongoing budget battle in the assembly.
I find this utterly fascinating.
3 comments:
It sure is an interesting shift in the way of things (I try not to over use paradigm shift unless absolutely necessary).
Just how late can the ADN hold the presses for a story? They do have to ship that story all over the state by breakfast the next morning, after all.
Multiple editions like newspapers used to? I remember getting the bulldog of the Seattle Times from vending machines before 3 p.m. and the final not long after 5. That's probably not ever going to happen again, what with the cost of newsprint and all.
I just read something about there being 60 people who produce the New York Times online, and they're going 24/7. But they're still relying on old pad-and-pencil reporters for most of their content.
It's a new world, and I think were knee deep in it while the brick and mortar purveyors have finally gotten in up to their ankles.
Which brings me to the Voice of The Times, which is exclusively on the web now. I only know one guy who reads it, but oddly, it's on the right track -- they're looking to go blogging now, too, complete with a comment section.
ish,
when they were starting the VOT up, back in June, I asked Tom Bernnan when they were going to start taking comments. he said it would be real soon - back then. don't hold your breath.
They're still trying to think of a way to make money off of it.
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