Note: I posted this on Thursday afternoon but I was in a rush and barely got all my thoughts down coherently. I had to stop for a Brooklyn Blogfest planning meeting and then my daughter' s piano lesson followed by drinks with a friend and then Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House. This morning I had to attend to some business at my son' s high school. So here goes again.
This blogger has the wrong attitude
I am talking about reporter cum blogger, Andy Newman, the editor of The Local, the New York Times' local Fort Green blog. He and Brownstoner's Jon Butler were guests on a recent Reporter Roundtable hosted by the Brooklyn Paper's Gersh Kuntzman.
Officials at the Times' asked him originally to do the blog in Park Slope, where Newman lives. "There's money there, rich people. We could get some advertising," he remembers the executive saying. "But I would never want to do a blog in Park Slope," Newman told Kuntzman. "Everything that is going to happen has already happened."
What does that mean? And what does that have to do with telling hyper-local stories?
Indeed, how does Newman define a good story? Do Newman's stories have to have the "this is important stamp" or the imprimatur of "this is a story about a place that is in the process of "happening."
Sounds like Newman already knows what kinds of stories he wants to tell and what kinds of people he wants to profile. Sounds like he's covering an idea rather than a place. Which is all well and good. But it doesn't make for good blogging, which requires walking-the-walk, keeping your eyes and ears open, developing a voice that resonates with your readers.
Obviously, he's talking about gentrification and covering a neighborhood in the process of gentrification. And that's an interesting topic.
But I don't know why he has to go putting down another neighborhood in Brooklyn in the process. This show hasn't aired yet but it's available for viewing on the Brooklyn Paper website.
As Yogi Berra said, That place is so crowded nobody goes there anymore.
Park Slope is boring – that’s OK.
And if this blog and one’s like it are the future of journalism, then we’re in real trouble. It’s really a gossip’s outlet – more yenta than mencken.
Well he blogs about Fort Greene. That does NOT make him a Fort Greene blogger. He lives in Park Slope. I think the Times should re-name the blog “A Park Sloper in Fort Greene” or “A Sloper’s take on the Fort Greene natives”. Sigh. What a sham.
i love park slope and i enjoy this blog, but think your pride in your neighborhood has ruined your objectivity on this one. it’s a big tent – these internets are…..no need to be proprietary and start defining what blogging is and is not, after all, it was the freedom to do what you wanted that allowed you and others like you to spring up, let’s not start codifying it, please.
I say NYT is boring and over…they even wrote their own obit this week only they didn’t realize it: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/business/media/12papers.html?scp=2&sq=newspapers&st=Search
I’m not dancing on the industry’s grave as I’ve had two different careers that were closely tied to/part of the newspaper industry. I just think the local blogging by NYT is their last desperate grasps for straws as they implode. On a separate note, I guess I’m somewhat happy for Gersh or whoever owned the Brooklyn Paper as they got out while they could.
THIS blog and others like it are probably the future of local BKLYN reporting. Like all things digital, the cream rises to the top – and that’s why Louise and her contributors plus other independent blogs are at the forefront of BLKN and boring old Park Slope.
Sigh. I wish he’d stayed in Park Slope and written his blog about it. He’s painting a ridiculously one-dimensional picture of Fort Greene/Clinton Hill, one centered on Brownstoners and the Stroller Brigade. Not sure he’s even able to grasp anything beyond that universe.
Andy Newman is right. But that is why I love Park Slope.
The quote “Everything that is going to happen has already happened” in Park Slope is pretty astounding. It also sounds like a preconception that rules out actual reporting. Anyplace with flesh-and-blood human beings, gentrification or no gentrification, is going to have surprises, twists, lows, and highs. Makes me wonder if this blogger will dig and see what’s around him anyplace.
I don’t know if that’s what he meant, Louise. Park Slope has gone through a lot over a long time and had its edgy moment(s). However, it was edgy a long time ago. Clinton Hill/Fort Greene, whether because of gentrification or pre-gentrification or in the midst of gentrification, have some edge and a story that’s more interesting to tell – it’s unfolding (although that too might be a bit past it’s prime). I think people blogging about Park Slope should be glad he’s focusing on other areas. I think the Times’ blog is just replicating other blogs while perhaps taking away from those blogs instead of doing something new. So, in a way, his comments are ironic.
PS is over-blogged. It’s a mature community in more ways than one. Fort Greene has the emerging demographics – and a ethnic mix that screams of those diversity classes one has in the corporate world – et voila!
so this guy is the Fort Greene blogger and he’s calling park slope over.
pot
meet
kettle