Friday, September 11, 2009

Kicked Out Of Hell - What's Next

I almost feel a bit silly, even writing this........but I was canned by a small town south Texico newspaper as a blogger, after almost six years of writing for them, and seeing the paper go through a handful of software upgrades, and a transformation from a respected locally published daily, that rivaled the city rags for content, columnists. and generally a good morning read, to a tabloid type publication, with a Myface style blog and comments forum that opened it's pages to an really wide range of daily posters. While for the most part, the folks blogging, though waaaaaay too many, were reasonably benign and actually in a number of cases, very informative and entertaining, there was one or two, who made it their mission in life, to monopolize the bandwidth and basically create in one case at least, a bully pulpit, tolerated, if not feared by the wimp editorial staff, due to it being penned by a boy of color, a token blogger if you will.........whose every word was combative or hate laced, yet in the eyes of the pale ranger editor of questionable credentials, a midwest yes man, who surrounded himself with like types, or struggling interns, who was actually afraid to take steps to limit or criticize the posts of said token blogger. Damn shame actually, because I honestly believe that in the long run, said token blo.......gger, and the aforementioned editor will both be unceremoniously stripped of their respective "duties" and will be looking for a new gig as well......
The Victoria Advocate was once a really good regional daily newspaper. Could be that rather than rcover, it will just go the way of so many other papers.........only at maybe an earlier date than it might have, had the owners not nade the fatal funn.......er, mistake of hiring the breadbasket shyster, "let's draft citizen reporters to do our work for us" bunch that is at the helm of thier hellbound train. No big.........I live in the city.......I have the Chronicle, The Times, the Morning News, and the WaPo all available at the local newsstand. In Vic, they have only the dying Advocate........well, there is a better paper available......for those who'll drive to Port Lavaca to pick one up........