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Beer, and the crying therein
May. 12th, 2009 08:19 amI was listening to an On the Media report of a US Senate hearing on newspapers. David Simon said, "The day I run into a Huffington Post reporter at a Baltimore zoning board hearing is the day that I will be confident that we've actually reached some sort of equilibrium."
My first reaction was, Hang out at a lot of zoning board meetings, do you, David? Why do I find that unlikely for a guy who hasn't had a newspaper job in 14 years?
But the other problem is bigger (and I'll bet you saw this coming): There isn't a "Baltimore zoning board." There's the "Board of Municipal & Zoning Appeals," but their web site uses "the Appeals Board," as their short name.
This is one of the prime problems in journalism. Once upon a time, a reporter could make a Gross Factual Error like that and be secure that no one would check him on it. And even if they did, it's not like anyone else would find out about it, other than their buddies at the water cooler. Today... Well, things have changed a lot in the last 14 years, David.
My first reaction was, Hang out at a lot of zoning board meetings, do you, David? Why do I find that unlikely for a guy who hasn't had a newspaper job in 14 years?
But the other problem is bigger (and I'll bet you saw this coming): There isn't a "Baltimore zoning board." There's the "Board of Municipal & Zoning Appeals," but their web site uses "the Appeals Board," as their short name.
This is one of the prime problems in journalism. Once upon a time, a reporter could make a Gross Factual Error like that and be secure that no one would check him on it. And even if they did, it's not like anyone else would find out about it, other than their buddies at the water cooler. Today... Well, things have changed a lot in the last 14 years, David.
