Main Entry: fourth estate

While I may not be the quality of writer and linker that others are, I do try to support my opinion with actual facts when I feel it is needed. When my topic is serious in nature, facts are almost always needed. I respect adherence to fact in anyone, and most especially, in my newspaper. But when there is a serious story, with easy to find facts to back it up, and my newspaper ignores it? No warm fuzzies for me. 

In all the times the Tribune has interviewed members of the past and present Commission, they have never once, to my knowledge, brought up the pilot program. GeeGuy has said over and over, (and maybe a few more times) this is a story. This is a story a journalist should be interested in. If the Commissioners don’t wish to tell us details of how and when they became aware of the program, how they justify the participants, if they are aware of the actual profit or loss off the power, then the Tribune could write an editorial about it. 

Perhaps an editorial like this. Fair, unbiased, just tellin’ it how we see it.  
This is a blog.
This is a blog.
This is a blog.
These are all blogs. This is not a blog.
Neither is this.
This is a - forum? discussion board? Whatever it is, it is not a blog.  

So I take a bit of issue with this nice little editorial when they say “For that they do not deserve the abuse heaped on them in places like the anonymous “blogosphere.“ 

First off, is there really less anonymity on the Tribunes forum that they can take potshots for that? Are they including their own forum in this broad statement? Because the “blogosphere” is not the only culprit, and show me where on a blog the admin allowed the comments to degenerate to this level.  When people let fly with bitterness, anger, personal attacks, was it on the blogs? No. Outrage? Yes. Was it justified? Well, at least you don’t have to go far to find out. 

“For that they do not deserve the abuse heaped on them in places like the anonymous “blogosphere.”  

“Mayor Dona Stebbins, who narrowly won re-election Tuesday, used to be a frequent visitor to online forums and public policy blogs. Now, she says, she’s all but stopped visiting them. “People can be so nasty,” she said in a post-election interview.”  

I respectfully disagree. While I do not know when she stopped reading them, there is ample evidence to show she stopped commenting on them some time ago. About the time people started questioning her decisions and actions as mayor. While she was a vocal critic of the former mayor and the City before 2005, she now calls the same actions by the blogs in regards to herself “nasty”? 

“But when they degenerate to the level of anonymous personal attacks and distortion, they lose their potency — life’s too short to waste time reading snide invective issued by angry people.” 

I do agree with this statement, yet I feel a bit like the child who sneaks a cookie, and then gets blamed for his big brother stealing the whole jar. So the blogs had some critics and a few commenters got a bit warm under the collar. The Trib Forum got down in the mud, throwing punches and fighting dirty. 

Perhaps the Tribune is justified in not publishing the facts about the pilot program. In the current political climate, that might just instigate a riot down at City Hall. 

As always, anyone who feels the urge can leave a comment. As always, if I don’t like it, I can moderate. And I will. 

This is a blog, my blog, and it is ruled by my interpretation of what is acceptable.  You have the right to say anything you want. I do not have to listen. If I do listen, I do not have to agree. Your opinion is not right or wrong. It is simply your opinion. 

9 November 2007 | Life | Comments