 | ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
|
« Legislative Database Update 4 | Main | Newsflash: Naifeh Opens Up » January 19, 2007Huh?I just saw where the Nashville Scene took a bizarre shot at me in its un-bylined "Off Limits" column in this week's edition. The unseen Scene scribe wrote... Any Day Now, He'll Be Joining John Jay for Lunch. If you're a public official - or former public official - who wants to be taken seriously, it may not be the best idea to fight your public policy battles on Bill Hobbs' blog. Any sentence from Hobbs that starts like this, "As former Republican state senator and gubernatorial candidate Jim Bryson explained in a comment posted on my blog last week..." is bound to leave some question in the minds of readers about Bryson's judgment. Then again, he was pitching for reducing the sales tax on food (score one) and criticizing state House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh for what appears to be feigned support for same (score two). "Naifeh simply wants to be 'for' reducing the sales tax on food while being 'frustrated that it can't be done'," Bryson wrote. "It's an old political trick often used to stop a popular issue.... It can be done over time if there is the political will."So, let me make sure I understand what the Scene is criticizing: Bryson scored two direct hits on the House Speaker, and the Scene somehow thinks that because he did it on a blog, it calls his judgement into question? Or is it because he posted the comment specifically on my blog? This blog is well-read among Tennessee's elected officials, bureaucrats and state employees, not to mention the news media. This afternoon, after writing about the difficulty of getting access to the legislature's legislative database I got an email from a state employee who said the large agency he works for also has difficulty getting information from the legislature, to the point that he's had to write software code to pull information out of the state database that the legislature wouldn't easily provide him. And today, just minutes after House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh announced the House would be putting floor vote results online for the public to see, I was contacted by an AP reporter for my comments. That wasn't out of the blue. The AP reporter knew I had been writing about that very issue for a number of days. The political media in Tennessee reads BillHobbs.com. Even the writer of the Scene's "Off Limits" column reads BillHobbs.com, apparently. So... why the put-down? Posted in Journalism & Media
Comments
Envy is the most rational explanation. The Nashville Scene fancies itself some sort of independent omniscient voice, smarter than the rubes who populate this area, and ever ready to dispense its superior intelligence in an act of noblesse oblige. Except they can't be taken seriously on many issues - as an example, they wrote ostensibly about illegal immigration, but presented its side as enlightened and the other side as full of fear-mongering, balding, fat nativists (they even used that word in the title of the front-page article!) You blog on local topics, firing off a paragraph or two, and you are taken seriously. This must drive them crazy. Of course, had Bryson made his comments to The Nashville Scene, we would be hearing what a great statesman he is. It's too bad that TNS has gone from having a somewhat libertarian, detached-observer point of view, pointing out local foibles in a good-hearted manner, to a snarky, hectoring know-it-all who feels obliged to tell-it-all. I now only read it for arts and restaurant reviews - and get rid of it quickly so that my kids don't have to see the pornographic back half of each issue. Posted by: Paul at January 19, 2007 6:20 PMI bet The Fabricator wrote that. Posted by: Donna Locke at January 19, 2007 10:41 PMNot to worry. Just opposite your name was an ad for SEXTOYS.COM. I doubt the average Scene reader stayed on the page long enough to read that far. I, for one, don't plan to add the Scene to my favorites. Posted by: RWBlack at January 20, 2007 6:04 AMBlogmeister, it is always tough to be Lemuel Gulliver in the land of the journalistic Lilliputians! Posted by: Isegoria at January 20, 2007 7:49 PMI expect to see the Scene similarly belittle Sen. Obama for annoucing his Presidential campaign on a website, while they lend their full support to Sen. Brownback for doing it the old-fashioned way. Posted by: Bob K at January 22, 2007 5:10 PMPost a comment
Comments Policy: Your comment is subject to deletion if it is off-topic or includes foul language or personal attack. Readers, please email me if you find comments that include egregious violations of this policy. Comments may not post immediately - do not post twice!
|
|||||||||||
