i've seen a few posts* over the past week berating the current issue of the independent weekly. normally i'd ignore this sort of thing, but i'm feeling outspoken tonight and it's been bothering me a little. now, i personally have no strong feelings about the indy one way or the other--i pick it up every week and read the music coverage and the missed connections (now creepily re-titled "i saw you"), and that's about it. (so i didn't even read the article all of you seem to find so offensive, though i did look at the captions of the pictures which showed people i knew.)
i guess what's bothering me about these blog entries is: if the indy angers you that badly, why don't you do something more proactive than getting all outraged about it online? i mean, they're probably doing the best they can. if you think they ought to do a better job, you could always offer to help them.
of course, half the point of blogs seems to be to have a forum to express one's outrage at whatever one finds so outrageous, and so maybe my entire point here is moot. i guess i just think that if there's something that really bothers you and you have the power to make it better, why not give it a shot? i mean, it's one thing to bitch about dubya--there's not much we can do about him till election day. but the indy? it's such a small, localized thing--i'm sure they'd be happy to have volunteer writers or whatever.
and thus endeth what will probably be my only political commentary ever on this little site.
* hmm, i swear i remember another post about this, but can't currently find it, which defeats the purpose of my entire post, b/c georg's post is really not very savage. please pretend you read lots of blogs mocking the indy this week and then my own annoyance/outrage makes sense.
I think the Indy has a problem with letting their ideology get in the way of their reporting. My ex was deeply involved in the libertarian party and the Indy is openly hostile to them, when they mention them at all. To the point of inventing a fictitious candidate one year so they could report on the difficulties of small party campaigning without ever having to say the word "libertarian." Whether you agree with them or not -- and I realize that a lot of people are deeply opposed to their beliefs -- the libertarians are pioneers in ballot access issues and making the election process available to more than just the big two parties. Which is valuable to everyone who cares about democracy, & it would be nice if the Indy would ever acknowledge that. --Sarah
ReplyDeleteit does seem unprofessional to allow politics to get in the way of reporting. WHY did they need to invent a fictional candidate, exactly? i certainly hope that was for a features article and not a news one. it's not like there aren't enough real candidates to discuss during every election.
ReplyDeleteIt was a while ago but I think the fictional candidate was an ongoing series throughout the campaign season one year, so they could profile the trials and tribulations of a small candidate (i.e. how do you campaign when you spent every bit of your money just getting on the ballot). I guess they wanted to inform people of the unreasonable burden small-party candidates face. But if they profiled a real candidate that would have meant the libertarians, who were then the only small party active on the local level if I recall correctly. Thus the fictional candidate. It was a woman and I think her name was "JoAnn" or "JoBeth" or something.
ReplyDeleteThat was me, Sarah, by the way. I should get a Blogger login so my name will automatically be attached to my comments :)
ReplyDeletewas the candidate's last name fabrics? :)
ReplyDelete