Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Media / Phillips Has the Nashville Blogosphere Lost Its Damn Fool Mind?
Posted by Betsy Phillips on Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 6:29 PM
I mean, let's just stop here for a minute. Your job, the job you get paid to do, is to schmooze people and bring them over to your side, make them see things your way, and when a blogger calls you and asks you if you are the burlesque dancer in the pictures, you're not smart enough to say, "I wish"?
I mean, the day Kleinheider calls me up and says, "B. there's some hot chick with nice tits doing a little burlesque dance on the internet and people are saying that it's you," I'm not even going to ask to see the photos, I'm saying "Damn straight they are." And when he asks, "Do you mean the pictures are of you or that of course people are saying the pictures are of you?" I'm going to laugh and ask him if he doesn't have something better to do with his afternoon.
There's no shame in being a burlesque dancer and there's no shame in being mistaken for one.
But where were we?
Yes, so this fool doesn't laugh in Kleinheider's face and tell him to get a life. Instead, she insists that the photos are not of her (okay, fine) AND THEN Rose Cox calls The Tennessean and tells them that she is indeed the person in the pictures and gets the photos taken down.
It's hard for me to decide who is more in the wrong here--Cox or The Tennessean. Let's just assume that Cox is telling Kleinheider the truth, that she is not the woman in the photographs. This seems the most plausible explanation, because all of the burlesque dancers I know who go public places and perform are not stupid enough to have not considered that, when they perform in public and pose in front of the photographer from the Tennessean, someone might learn that they are burlesque dancers.
I know we're reaching the end of a period in time when we can talk about a newspaper as being the paper of record for a community, but for right now, it is still the case that The Tennessean reports what happened at the events it covers.
Cox has the hubris to think that she has a right to alter the public record to make it seem as if someone who clearly was at a party covered by the Tennessean was not actually there? Just have them take away photos because she doens't like the public record the way it is?
Holy shit. Is The Tennessean editable by everyone now? Our own local version of Wikipedia, where we all compete to change the telling of history to suit our own needs?
Cox fucked with the record. The Tennessean let her. And Kleinheider's the bad guy?
Please.
Comments (32)
Showing 1-32 of 32
Yes, ACK is the bad guy. Why did he even need to know if it was her in the picture? He wasn't working on a story about her being inappropriate with legislators. He was just being nosy about what a hot girl does with her free time. It's very very sleazy of him to call a girl he doesn't know on the phone when he's not even working on a story and say, "Hey, I saw some hot pics on the net. Is that you?" People in the media should report the story not create the story and be in the story and that's what ACK did. So yes, he's the bad guy and I can't believe you don't understand that.
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How do you think reporting works? You hear something, you follow up on it. You do some stuff folks find sleezy or distasteful. Most of the time it doesn't come to anything and you don't write about it.
Other times, you discover something weird--like that the Tennessean is open-edit.
Why do we care if Rose Cox was A) doing burlesque and B) didn;t want the whole world to know about it, because C) it has NO bearing on her professional life?
THAT'S what all the hubbub is about. This is seriously right on the line of defamation, because, until today, Rose Cox was NOT a public figure. That's why ACK and SouthComm might well face a lawsuit.
Steve, you know I love you, but what the hell kind of prudish world do you want to live in where someone saying you're a burlesque dancer is cause for defamation?
It's a job. A cool job. It's nothing to be ashamed of or keep secret.
And that dancer was at a public event which the media was also invited to and posed for photos taken by the Tennessean. If she didn't want the world to know about it, why is she participating in a public art form in front of the media?
And it does have bearing on all of our lives if any fool can call the Tennessean and get them to change the shape of their coverage of events to suit the biggest complainer.
At this point, I hope that dancer is Rose Cox, because how much would it suck to have a job you're proud of and find out some bully can yank your image off the internet because you look too much like her?
I don't think the issue is that she's been "outed" -- the issue is that AC rather persistently pursued a non-newsworthy "tip" (about what?) via facebook which (to me, even, much less a girl) would come off as extremely creepy. She blew him off with a lie, and now she's the centerpiece of ACK's blow-hard morality tale.
I can't figure out what the "tip" is -- and that's where I'm really confused. "Hey, check it out -- Chris Wage works for centresource, and also, check out this picture of this dude drinking a beer -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/cwage/463671944/ -- ANYONE LOOK FAMILIAR!? *duh duh duh*" How is this a tip? A tip about what?
Who cares?
The only lesson here that most people are going to take away is that when ACK comes asking questions, you should ignore him entirely, instead of telling a go-away white lie.
If it's not bad for his professional life, it's certainly bad for his personal one.
For the record, Manuel's Birthday is by no means a "public event." It is a private, invitation only party.
That said, I don't think someone posing for photos in a fringed bikini--surrounded by 100+ people--should have any exceptions privacy.
Didn't you blog anonymously "out of respect for your family" because your Dad was a minister? What were you so ashamed of?
I find it humorous that you're calling The Tennessean "the public record." How can a privately owned company be the public record? Just because they print words on a paper doesn't make them the keepers of The Truth As We Live It.
So she asked some pictures that may or may not have been her to be removed from a website? How is that screwing with the "public record" anyway? If a picture published on a website can be considered the public record, and removing said picture is screwing with that record, then what about pics I've posted on twitpic and then removed later? Am I messing with the public record then? Will someone blog about that?
In ACK's hard-hitting piece, he was trying to make the point that the "crime" was the lie--either the lie to him or to the paper. Aunt B, you're trying to say the crime is tampering with the public record. I think that both supposed points are just a bit of a stretch and it all smells of "Slow News Day" to me.
Betsy, perhaps you can see the problem if I quote a comment from the thread over at PP:
The fact that a well-known member of the lobbying corps is a burlesque dancer by night — and lies about it — is relevant.
You seem to be defending this because you think being a burlesque dancer is no big deal, so what damage was done? (excuse my rough paraphrasal) -- the reality, as far as I can tell, is that the "tip" here is that a lobbyist might dare dance burlesque, which is apparently a morally reprehensible controversy, worth "investigating".
If I'm wrong, I'll gladly rescind, but no one else can give me an explanation of what the "story" here is..
Actually, I shouldn't say "THE" problem, but rather "a" problem..
I just can't figure out what's worse.. that ACK would pursue this "story" because he thought burlesque dancing is morally objectionable and thus news-worthy, or for no reason at all.
But Chris, that's how it works. You chase down rumors to see if there's anything to them. A person can't wait to see if there's a story before he investigates to see if there's a story. If it had turned out that she was a burlesque dancer and that was the whole thing--lobbyist by day, burlesque dancer by night--then yes, I'd think that was incredibly stupid and I'd be dogging Kleinheider right along with everyone else.
But as hard as people try to pretend that's the whole story, it's not, because she got to revise the Tennessean's website and who knew an individual who wasn't associated with the paper could do that and not leave a trace?
Or maybe Kleinheider would have looked into it and discovered something else newsworthy. But how can he know if there's anything if he doesn't look?
That's how it works.
People seem to be upset because they got a look at how the sausage is made and they resent knowing it.
S., if you don't see the difference between the Tennessean and you as an individual posting pictures on twitpic, I think that's pretty telling and just backs up my point about newspapers losing their cultural authority. I was still willing to grant them some. You're not. That's cool, we're just a few seats away in the same row of public opinion.
Tom, if only we hadn't had the weirdo abortion-torture-porn dude earlier today, you could win for most unintentionally creepy comment of the day.
Aunt B., you're kidding, right? It is a stretch to refer to either Metro Mix or Byrd's Eye View as "reporting," at least on par with what say Michael Cass does. It's the tabloid and entertainment side of the Tennessean, which hardly amounts to classic journalism. In fact, it's probably just a notch above their advertising section on the journalism scale.
Likewise, ACK's reposting sensationalist pics from a private party counts more as titillating tabloid meant to evoke an emotional response than as copy meant to inform and to expose information of broad interest. When I see stuff like this from the news media I wonder why bloggers are labeled as the the exclusive culprits of rendering public discourse coarse.
At a general level, the problem of encouraging reporters to blog under a news media banner is that they finally get to spill out whatever they want without standards of newsworthiness or tact, even as they vent their spleens about blogging being inferior to true journalism. At least I could look up to them when they acted like pros. I'm not sure you could ever sell me on the virtues of this new brand of Facebook journalism.
So, I'm just wondering whether the Nashville Scene would ever remove a swimsuit pic off its website if one of the models requested it? Or does the swimsuit edition count as news content, too?
Chris: Since you quoted me from PP, then at least put the whole thing in context. Which is ... sex. In the Legislature. Which has a problem with ... sex.
To wit: We’re talking about the Tennessee Legislature — an undisputedly sleazy culture where lawmakers (both Democrats and Republicans) swap everything from information to spit. The fact that a well-known member of the lobbying corps is a burlesque dancer by night — and lies about it — is relevant. If she worked at Kroger or Mapco, would it matter? Of course not. But she works in the most ethically and sexually challenged environment in the state. And she is part of the public trust (or in Tennessee’s case, distrust) that formulates policies and laws that affect all our lives.
That's relevant. Period. End of story.
Oh for ***** sake, I hate taking up for ACK, and I'm not sure he's fond of it either.
I don't know how many times I've gotten on bloggers about not checking facts, and now a blogger checks facts, which is what journalists do, and he is reprimanded publicly for it?
If you print unsubstantiated gossip, that's all it is...you're a gossip who can type on these Internets.
If you did what ACK did, you checked your facts before writing about it, well, you did the right thing.
End of story.
The real failure in this whole situation is The Tennessean. They got scooped by a blogger who used their own photos to beat them to a news break. In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny ... "What a maroon(s)!"
As much as I'd like to avoid this snake pit, there's one thing that's worth pulling out and examining further.
Chris Wage: "...the issue is that AC rather persistently pursued a non-newsworthy "tip" (about what?) via facebook which (to me, even, much less a girl) would come off as extremely creepy."
Irrespective of whether or not it's OK to be a burlesque dancer AND a lobbyist, or whether it's OK to lie about being a burlesque dancer and then tell the Tennessean to take down photos of someone who may or may not be you, it is most certainly A-OK to track down someone using Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, the Yellow Pages, whatever. You're a reporter, you need to talk to a person for a story, anything short of illegally obtaining their phone number or address is fair game. Creepy to some, just another tool in the tool box for a reporter.
All I can say is that this whole thing sure is making for some strange bedfellows.
How one feels about ACK's story doesn't seem to be determined by political, social, or economic lines. It's purely a gut reaction.
B, what you feel about the respectability of burlesque dancing is quite beside the point. Chances are, Cox's employers don't agree with you. You may think that's crappy, but we deal with reality.
So, we're dealt with, er, exposing this person over, what, lying? To the media?
This is where you tell me that some yahoo on the internet has no right to tell you anything about journalistic ethics. But, if I'm in that chair, I don't make the same call.
She lied (maybe), and now you know that about her and can mentally file that away. But it, in an of itself, is not worthy of a possibly damaging story.
Like the policeman in the Gates case, professional ethics says you have to sit there and take it, unless something else is there to really take action about.
The second half of my previous comment was directed at Caleb. I swore I typed his name, but must have removed it in an rewrite.
Early onset Alzheimer's?
Slarti, who cares that she lied? People lie to journalists all the time.
What I care about is that she implicitly got the Tennessean to back her up in her lie, by getting them to take the photos down. If they were her, that's sketchy.
If they weren't her, she's got no right to do that to someone else.
It's weird, at the least.
And, yeah, the bedfellows are strange, but that's because the reaction has been so strange. When you, Slarti, say "Hmm, well, I wouldn't have done that," that to me seems reasonable and a place where we can have discussion and maybe not agree but reach some understanding.
Like the discussion we're having here.
But the weird outrage over at Post Politics? I'm just not understanding that. Do people not understand what reporting looks like?
Do people not understand what reporting looks like?
I'm still completely confused by this.. As I responded to matt pulle via twitter: there's a difference between annoying questioning (reporting) and public castigation.
What exactly is AC "reporting" on? Why can no one answer this question?
Even if there were some huge conspiracy he was on the trail of, I'd say he pretty thoroughly screwed the pooch by writing a 3 page long blog post calling her a liar as a prelude.
But hey, maybe I'm wrong.. I'll reserve judgement until ACK's "burlesque-gate" frontpage piece comes out in the city paper..
You folks apparently have a lot of free time on your hands and nothing remotely fun to do with it. Either that or you're huddled in some cube somewhere avoiding what your employer is paying you to do.
This whole thing is the biggest ado about NOTHING that I've seen in a long time. And that goes for ACK's original story too. Who cares if it was or wasn't Ms. Cox other than Ms. Cox? This was not a party for politicos. The girl in the pix is is not a "burlesque dancer;" she was playing one at a party for somebody not related to Ms. Cox's day job.
Sheesh people.
What I'm curious about is the blonde in white who appeared to be pregnant.
That's what clinches it for me. I think Cox was one of the women. I think they did it as an inside joke for their friends at the party.
I think the story is illustrative of the Cliques which run our public and private society in Nashville and I think Kleinheider did his job. He certainly acheived The Kleinheider Professional Orgasm--a story with legs that ups his page views.
I wonder if ACK would have been so hot for this story if Rose Cox were not a lobbyist. If she were just an ordinary shlub who worked at Acme Widgets I doubt he'd have taken the time.
And that makes me wonder if our politics-as-entertainment fascination hasn't reached a new level. You know, Pres. Kennedy had all sorts of fun with the ladies, including famous ones like Marilyn Monroe, and the media knew about it but never wrote about it because the president was considered "hands off." Fast forward a couple of decades and we have Pres. Clinton impeached for a blow job with an intern.
So now what a lobbyist may or may not do when she's not on the job is fair game? Do people really care? Is that newsworthy? Even gossip-worthy?
I'll take that last question as rhetorical, Beale, and point out contra-Coble that the question of ACK's praxis has more legs than the story itself. If this is news, his ethos has become a distraction. Of course, I'm not convinced that entertainment is news.
But then again I'm stupid enough to question whether the death of the King of Pop counts as politics-on-which-to-post. What do I know about political journalism?
I'm just curious about the larger issue at play. This strikes me as VERY inside the beltway and I wouldn't think people would be interested, but then I blog about my cats and my garden so I suppose everything is fair game.
The main difference being that your blog is personal, while ACK runs a politics blog representing a news media corporation. If he blogs this stuff on his own personal blog, I hold my tongue, thus acknowledging his right to post at will. Mainstream media bloggers should be held accountable.
I was going to express my surprise that Aunt B. is taking this line, but instead I'll just quote what Harrison said in another thread:
"Just because I don’t want burlesque dancers shaping public policy and state law doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate a tasseled boobie when I see one."
Argumentum ad absurdum.
Oh, and isn't this some kind of a victimless form of slut-shaming? Meaning, there's not even a penis involved here, we're just shaming this woman for no good reason?
If it isn't, then I clearly don't understand what the term means.
This particular blog is pretty revealing for someone who has also been having issues with this circumstance. I have looked at many resources to no avail. I will continue readingg and learning here in the hope of ultimately getting past this impediment.
