Chron reader rep: STAR section "storytelling" not journalism
Some days, we can feel the pain of Chronicle reader representative James Campbell. It's particularly acute when the reader representative seemingly discovers that grownups are in short supply at his newspaper, like today:
For two weeks running, I riffed about Anna Nicole Smith in my Sunday About Chron column politely urging our editors and staff to resist the urge to overplay stories about this famous, but unimportant-in-the-big scheme miscreant.
[snip]
Apparently, no one heeded the RR's words because we invited incredulity with today's story about ANS. Not only was it old news and tawdry, it had no news value. Moreover, Smith's lesbian lover Sandi Powledge divulged the details of their love affair in a December 1999 story published in the Houston Press. It also appeared in other New Times publications.
A simple Google search easily would have unearthed the seven-year-old story, but apparently we did not bother to run Powledge's name through Google or Nexis/Lexis before deciding to devote almost an entire Star section page to old gossip.
So, let's do the accounting: Essentially, we overplayed an old story that is based on the word of one woman -- a self-admitted recovering drug addict who is homeless and jobless. On top of that, we did not credit the Press for breaking the "news" seven years ago.
Publishing this story today, created a new low for sloppy and embarrassing storytelling in our paper. (I purposely did not call it journalism because there is nothing in the story deserving of that characterization.)
That's the Chronicle's STAR section in action.
Interestingly, the reader representative had pledged just over a month ago that he was taking a break from the STAR section:
I'm also declaring a six-month moratorium on commenting about anything in the STAR section or its related associates, like the TMi page.
We had a feeling that was going to be a tough promise to keep for the reader representative.
BLOGVERSATION: Lone Star Times.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/23/07 09:17 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Sphere | Comments (2)
Previous Entry | Home | Next Entry
Trackback
Unfortunately, abusive spammers have forced us to disable incoming trackback pings. The Technorati link should list related posts. Feel free to drop us an email if you've linked a post and would like to let us know about it.
ADVERTISING
DISCLAIMER
All content © 2004-08, blogHOUSTON and the respective authors.
blogHOUSTON.net is powered by Nucleus.
Site design and Nucleus customization are by Kevin Whited.