Obviously, there was the explosive nature of the charges.
Then there was the fact that the story wasn't broken by the mainstream media but by South Florida blogger Al Crespo of the Crespo-Gram Report. I've known about the Crespo-Gram Report for quite some time but a couple things, including a blogging platform that is not Sift friendly, has kept me from adding it to the SFDB blogroll.
Last, but not least, it appears as though the Miami New Times, who has had a chronically contemptuous relationship with the South Florida blogging community, has found in Al Crespo a blogger they can appreciate.
In a post that made it to my RSS reader but never appeared on the website, Miami New Times Editor Chuck Strouse calls for Exposito to be fired and officially dubs Crespo an "uberblogger."
I would say this is a trifecta for Al that not only builds his individual credentials but also adds some credibility, no matter how slight, to blogging in general.
That can only be a good thing.
.
16 comments:
Agree, quite a story: Uber Blogger fits.
and...it is quite annoying that when the Miami Herald repeats a story that was taken from a Blog, they leave out the name of the Blog from the Miami Herald:
"The blowup began Wednesday morning after a picture of the voided check surfaced on a local blog."
They have done this before.
Al Crespo rocks but he needs to switch to WP so we can at least hyperlink the stories he writes.
But every time I tell something about that, he said he doesn't care because the right people are reading his blog.
And he's right.
Good to see him getting recognized.
(The truth is, he's not much of a techie, so he doesn't want to be bothered with anything like that)
"the Miami New Times, who has had a chronically contemptuous relationship with the South Florida blogging community."
That's a ridiculous statement. Are you talking about the same New Times that named your blog The Best Blog in South Florida"
I'd like to see some examples "contemptuous" actions by New Times towards the blogging community. Or as that just something you made up?
@G.O.Despair-you're as bad as Rick when it comes to making ridiculous and unfounded statements.
Here's a line from the Chuck Rabin's first story on the check scandal: "The chief’s statement came in response to questions that arose after the voided city check posted Wednesday morning on the Crespo-Gram Report, a local blog."
He's not obligated to mention Crespo every time he writes a story afterwards.
BTW, here's a line from a June 22 Herald story: "The payout to Spring—first reported on Al Crespo’s blog, thecrespogramreportcom — has created a furor in the local blogosphere..."
Do you actually read the Herald?
sounds like this place has its own bitchmeister in the comments wah wah wah wah
You can blame me for the blog disappearing. I axed it because there were two post that basically said the same thing, one written by Chuck and another by Tim.
@Bill: I don't think Rick knows we have pleasant talks over the phone often.
Also Liz Tracy, Orlando Winters, Paula Niño, Trina Sargalski, and more are all local bloggers who happen to write for us as well. So I'd like to think we have a great relationship with the blogosphere. (And let's not forget before I was working for New Times, I was a blogger too.)
However, if Rick's referring to New Times/Daily Blog's constant love-hate relationship, well that's true. At maybe Short Order/Lee Klein's relationship with Frodnesor and Chowfather is rocky. But that hardly constitutes the entire South Florida blogosphere.
And I have a little something up my sleeve that I'm working on to show the SFL blogs how much New Times appreciates them. You'll be hearing about that in the next few months hopefully.
@ Duran
Thanks. You see, Rick, while he likes to present himself as the self-appointed overseer of the So Fla Blogosphere, has an annoying habit of writing stuff before he has all the facts. And that naturally calls into question anything he writes.
Damn, I remember when Rick and Bill used to be pals.
Wow?
I'm not a uber anything. I'm a guy with an attitude, a lot of free time, some particular, though not necessarily marketable skills and high degree of dislike for politicians who screw over people.
I do share everyone's concerns about how the "real" news media often takes the efforts of bloggers and runs with it without sharing credit. At the same time I think that all of us who do this have 2 responsibilities. First to work harder and getting the facts straight, and secondly to not hide behind anonymity.
As for my use of a non-blog program - I use IWEB - it's because I have developed a real comfort level with the program and its presentation features that's important as I struggle with issues of content, and secondly because I never started out to be a mainstream blogger.
I consider myself very much an acquired taste, and I'm happy with that because the folks who do come to my site actually spend real time reading what I write. I'd rather have a hundred regular readers than a thousand skimmers.
I think that somehow, sometime a gathering of folks who blog about politics and government need to get together to try and work out some sort of overarching guidelines to be presented to the "real" media about showing respect and credit for our efforts.
We are, after all the future.
Thanks,
al crespo
Well said, Al.
Duran...you probably are right when you say that my comment pertained more towards my relationship with the MNT than it does with the entire SoFla blogosphere. I didn't mean to imply that the MNT dissed everyone, but I guess I remember my back and forth with you and Frank Alvarado about the Homestead is Home post and a recent MNT post dedicated to me and a recent reference to Eye on Miami's "zealous" support of Gimenez during the recent election. I know it isn't much and there's probably a few other things, but, yeah, on the whole it's been directed my way.
Having said that, Riptide continues to link back to their sources of info in the blogosphere most of the time and there's the Best Blog recognition which is major.
As I said, "chronically contemptuous" with, I'll now say, most of the contempt directed my way.
Carlos: Yep, it's true. He's made me his project. I'm feeling a lot of what you went through with him. Possibly more than you or anyone else will ever realize.
.
"The Miami New Times, who has had a chronically contemptuous relationship with the South Florida blogging community."
Translation: New Times has disagreed with SFDB from time to time.
Hmmm. I did a search of the story again "Crespo" was not mentioned "Local Blog" was in Today's story print. If they mentioned it in earlier story on Wednesday...fine. I stand corrected that they made a reference in some story that I didn't see written on Wednesday. I didn't know I had to read every story in the Miami Herald to maintain credibility. Does anyone really believe blogs get proper credit from the mainstream media when a blog breaks a story? I always give credit AND link to the Herald...I pay my dues to the big guys.
Sorry I stepped into a pissing match...I do my best to stay out of such things.
The mainstream media is getting better at crediting bloggers.
I've broken some stories that were followed by the mainstream media and never got a mention, but I've also broken stories that were credited to me, including from the New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC and most recently, the Sun Sentinel.
A few years ago, blogging was still kind of an underground thing, so journalists would be kind of embarrassed to acknowledge them because it showed they got scooped.
But now many journalists are realizing that it adds credibility to their reporting by acknowledging the blogging source.
I also think that many times reporters who neglect to link to the blog or mention it just do it out of carelessness rather than deliberately.
Also, if a reporter sees something on a blog, but then does his own reporting on it, is he really required to acknowledge the blog?
Not really.
If a crosstown newspaper scoops its rival newspaper, the rival newspaper doesn't usually acknowledge this in its story if it decides to follow up on it through its own reporting.
Also, remember when there was the mainstream media, then alternative media?
Now it's all corporate media, pretty much all mainstream, except you get more curse words with the weeklies.
Now, the real alternative media is the blogs.
I'm the last one to offer anybody tech suggestions, but I just added Crespogram Report to my blogroll and it seems to work seamlessly with all the others.
Until the current kerfuffle, I never knew of this website, and it's right up my alley, which suggests that either Crespo misjudges the limitations of his platform, or I need to pull my head out of my ass more often.
I didn't know who "Duran" is either, and (s)he doesn't bother to self-identify or link, leaving readers to figure it out for themselves. That's a sample of the annoying narcissistic crap which drove me away from NT to begin with, despite the fine weekly display of T&A. I'm sure it doesn't bother the cool kids, though.
NT hired me once to write for them as well and has always been good to me. I enjoyed working with Chuck and Duran.
squathole - Duran is an editor at NT.
I love this story because it just goes to show the kind of impact bloggers can have. It's not all pictures of kittens posted by teenagers.
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