BlogaBarbara

Santa Barbara Politics, Media & Culture

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Community Question: Where's the Love, Wendy?

I received this from the frequent reader:

The Newsuppress is running a story on life on the home front in WWII. Wonder how they thought that up?

Read it and weep -- they should at least give me and my frequent reader a bit of recognition with a a mention as a source or inspiration considering our post just a few days ago.

I thought Craig Smith (where he reports today that Jerry Roberts is in arbitration) and I were IP blocked and there were video cameras watching every reporter's every move. Guess it didn't work and I'm left without being seen in print. Where's the love, Wendy?

Labels: ,

19 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The News-Less lives up to its reputation and chases the other news media, now including Blogabarbara, as a routine operating procedure for them.

Imitation is good flattery.

12/05/2007 11:26 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice ploy to sniff out their subscriber base. And fun article to read. This is not bad thing to do at all. Work from your base and serve them well. There are plenty of us who do like the new NewsPress.

12/05/2007 11:30 PM  
Blogger Sara De la Guerra said...

11:30 PM -- It's fine if they work from their base and it is actually fine if you like the News-Press (I don't care who their subscriber base is) -- but how can you like them not attributing sources for their sources? Isn't that Journalism 101?

Consider this from Marcellus in Hamlet:

Horatio:
He waxes desperate with imagination.

Marcellus:
Let's follow. 'Tis not fit thus to obey him.

Horatio:
Have after. To what issue will this come?

Marcellus:
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Horatio:
Heaven will direct it.

Marcellus:
Nay, let's follow him. [Exeunt.]

This relates because the fish is rotting from the head down in this metaphor proposed by Marcellus -- an able one considering the present day situation related to the News-Press.

12/06/2007 12:17 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A general interest newspaper shouldn't have a "base," unless that base is the entire population.

12/06/2007 11:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Looks like Bush reads Blogabarbara too...

George:
Holy Scat! sa1 spilled the beans on the mortgage scam on Blogabarbara. Durn it.

Dick:
Good things the Bushies pawned off those bad loans to the foriegners while raking the cream off for themselves.

George:
That's right, Dick. Good ole Yankee Ingenuity strikes agin.

Dick:
Indeed Grasshopper, but the Natives are getting restless.

George:
That's becuz that Sear-us De La Guru character keeps getting them all stirred up with the truth and irrelevent stuff like that.

Dick:
The truth? The truth? They can't handle the truth!

Just stall 'em with a rate freeze. That'll give our friends time to move their big money out of the markets and leave Main Street holding the bag...just like last time.

George:
Yeah. That was some ass-woopin' they took. I 'specially like that Bar-B-Que fella. Screwed the gov't with medicare fraud, then screwed his investors... pullin' out before his house of cards collapsed was pure brillience. Those dolts in SB aughta make him honorary mayor or put him in charge of some festival or somethin.

Dick:
Yeah... Those socialist liberals in SB deserve it.

12/06/2007 11:13 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sara,

Nice one! Some people will just never get it!

12/06/2007 1:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

you really think they whip up a lengthy piece like that in only four days?

A request for WWII memories has been running in the paper since Nov. 12.

12/06/2007 2:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Now that we've seen what the Newsuppress did with the WWII story...we can be thankful for Sara.

No connection in the nice oral histories with any issues except privation of goods!! (In Santa Barbara we only get interested and upset when the story is about what we can't have.Soooo materialistic...)

Where are the soldiers in the story?

12/07/2007 6:56 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don Jose, the NP WWII article asked for descriptions of what life was like on the homefront in Santa Barbara, not what life was like for the soldiers.

See if you can check your NP hatred at the door before you bias your response to constantly find fault with every thing the NP does these days.

It was a charming, local and human interest story. I hope they do more to reflect on our history here in this town and capture those live first hand reports while we still can. And it was fun to read stories from people that were known locally, giving their lives here a new perspective. Thanks NewsPress. Keep it up.

12/07/2007 9:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I didn't think of myself doing an anti-NewsPress rant. My apologies. I guess I saw the series "War" on PBS and was kind of tuned in to the homefront and the soldier as being the two sides of the coin you had to talk about to understand sacrifice back home.

Marilyn McMohan (spelling?)does all that nice social column stuff and no doubt she's a fine person.

Next week we can learn about who was at the charity ball. She always spells all the names right.

12/07/2007 8:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anon 9:50AM,

Those of us angered my the NP have high standards that are defined by codes of conduct developed over time by organized bodies of professionals. If we judge the current NP by this code, we find that one fuzzy story about WWII does not merit a congratulatory speach.

I say to those who gush every time the NP scabs actually manage to scrape together original content: learn to live by higher standards of excellence, and don't expect us to check our high standards at the door. Cheer on McCaw's "how-low-can-you-go" limbo contest all day long if it turns your little crank.

12/08/2007 7:22 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

7:22, if your "high journalistic standards" were so obvious and valuable, you would not be still ranting on a public website, you would be gainfully and happily employed privately elsewhere -- and hopefully somewhere where your "high journalistic standards" would be subject to a good spellchecker.

Get over yourself and your high standards. Everyone has had to find that balance between honor and employability; not just you terminated journalists.

12/08/2007 11:17 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

anon 950 your speach about high standards was touching. you should wryte headlines for the sound.

12/08/2007 11:51 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anon 11:17,

Pardon my typo, but I'll take that over the belief that we all need to strike a balance between our principals and our jobs. You write:

"Get over yourself and your high standards. Everyone has had to find that balance between honor and employability; not just you terminated journalists."

For starters, I'm not a journalist. Second, I'm sorry you have to compromise your principals to achieve your goals. I make a point of not doing that. You should consider the possibility of adopting a set of ethics you won't bend for money. This is what the fired NP journalists have done, and they are being rightfully honored for it.

12/09/2007 8:17 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

7:22, So is everyone who works for the NP a scab? In your perfect world of high standards, where people can (should)quit a job, refuse a job or hold out for reinstatement for a job forever, what are they to do in the meantime? Bad things happen in publishing, and virtually every other kind of business. But in a very weird way, those who have taken on the NP as a never-ending cause cannot see the bad things happening anywhere else. The Indy, for example, did they ever replace George Thurlow after he went to UCSB? Why not? In fact, what kind of investigative reporting does that "alternative" paper ever do??? Why not hold them to the high standards?

12/09/2007 4:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

8:17, if you can eat while you uphold your version of your personal ethics, then fine. No argument.

But you sound like a whiner who wants to be taken care of at someone else's expense, while you maintain your own personal brand of ethics.

Please prove me wrong. But that is not ethical behavior at all on your part, it is one of the biggest sellouts out there - demanding someone else take care of you. Grow up.

12/10/2007 9:10 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

9:10:

I eat and live well and I work - two jobs actually - and I don't compromise principals in either case. If I did, I might be able to get by with one job. Take better care with your judgment.

And I further challenge you: what is childish about having high standards? What is childish about having the discipline to speak out for workers rights while others condemn you for "not getting over it"?

Who is more childish: me for sticking up for workers' rights regardless of how long justice takes? Or you, for attacking me? Let me put it another way: I'm inspired to write on this blog because I believe people in this town have been grossly wronged by one of its most powerful citizens and I've got the stamina to "not let it go". What inspires you to take the time to speak out? Me!

You might benefit from reorganizing your priorities.

12/10/2007 7:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Plenty of powerful citizens have grossly wronged the people of this town. Not all of them own a newspaper. Do you speak out against all of them, or just the one?

12/10/2007 9:44 PM  
Blogger jqb said...

Nice ploy to sniff out their subscriber base. And fun article to read. This is not bad thing to do at all. Work from your base and serve them well. There are plenty of us who do like the new NewsPress.

What the heck does that have to do with anything Sara wrote?

7:22, if your "high journalistic standards" were so obvious and valuable, you would not be still ranting on a public website, you would be gainfully and happily employed privately elsewhere

Where do you whackjobs get the idea that everyone critical of the NP is an unemployed former writer for the NP?

12/12/2007 11:28 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home