Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Cutting off your nose with a double edged sword

We've had issues here with local newspapers not getting correct stories that we broke here at LO. Its frustrating and irritating.

We've also had folks come to our defense for not getting proper credit for stories we broke.

Its nice to get a pat on the back when someone picks up a story we've dug up--no doubt about it. But if the story has incorrect elements, then what?

When our Dom Biggi story was completely flubbed by the O, we griped. But I think we were careful not to bite the hand that can potentially pick up more of our stories and get them out there.

This seems like its close to hand-biting to me.

Its possible that J-Bog contacted Nick Budnick and gave him the corrections and Nick still didn't get it right. In which case I'd say Jack is perfectly justified in venting all kinds of public frustration at Nick. But it looks (from the outside peeking in, obviously) that Nick got it wrong rather than talk to Nick about it one-on-one, he popped off on his blog and in the Trib's comments.

Not that I'm under any delusion that the Trib won't keep fishing at Jack's place as part of their effort to get to local stories. They're practically joined to his hip. But I'm wondering if the reporters won't be so eager to tackle Jack's pieces if he won't at least give them a good faith chance to make corrections before his goes ballistic on them.

And then again I could be completely talking out of my ass because I don't know all the nuances of this story. Heh.