Hussey on Deggans
December 11, 2007 at 11:38 pm by Wayne GarciaMichael Hussey at Pushing Rope has this harsh assessment of Times media critic Eric Deggans:
Deggans is a media critic that never sees fault with his employer.
Hussey bases his view on Deggans response to my post about how the Times and Tribune censored sexual descriptions and profanities from .pdf’s of the arrest report of Jessica Sierra. I take issue with one point in his post: Deggans is not an ombudsman in any sense of the word; he is a media reporter, mostly writing about other media forms and companies. Both dailies in town generally leave the other alone and out of their news columns. And as I wrote privately to Hussey, biting the hand that feeds you is tough, so I don’t sweat that Deggans may from time to time disagree with my harsh assessments about his newspaper.
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December 12th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Deggans and I disagreed on my “Tbt* Misfires” piece. He took the side of his employer but I felt his response was fair. Gotta agree with PoHo that “biting the hand that feeds you is tough.” (Notice the dearth of comments whenever Wayne writes about CL layoffs).
http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/tampacalling/2007/11/07/tbt-misfires/
In a related note, just got an email from Deggans that he will be entering a “Battle of the Media Bands” that starts at 6 p.m. today at Jackson’s Bistro in downtown Tampa. Say what you want about him as a media critic, but I have it from reliable sources that he’s a badass bassist.
December 12th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Brendan McLaughlin of ABC Action News (now in HD!) sez his band will be on at about 7:30 pm
December 12th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
I stumbled on this discussion of my work today, and already filed a response to Pushing Rope. I figure i’ll also post it here, with a few additions and clarifications.
First, i’ll note that it is difficult to write negative stories about your employer, particularly if that’s not your main job. Since moving back to the TV critic’s job in Sept. 06, my main gig has been covering TV. In addition, I try to write about online, radio and print media, when time and energy allows.
Second, I think the item Wade cites is a perfect example, though I disagree ith him a bit on one point. I didn’t totally take the side of my employer in the item I wrote criticizing Wade’s post. I just thought he missed the real probloem with the story, which was that TBT slapped an in-your-face headline on a story which was trying to tell a more nuanced, balanced narrative.
And as far as the Jessica sierra thing goes, i’ll stand by my original post. There’s so many things worth criticizing us for — keeping a few four-letter words out of publicly available report on a jailed singer is not one of them.
Here’s the rest of what I wrote on Pushing Rope. And i’ll also note i’m not, unfortunately, a badass bassist. But my band is pretty good. And we play at 9 p.m. tonight
“I am always a little dismayed at the criticism directed at me that seems a little off target. This item, to me, seems particularly harsh.
The fact is, I have found fault with many things my employer has done, most notably, the April TBT headline “He Died of Shame,” which accompanied a story on WFLA weatherman John winter’s suicide.
I wrote a direct criticism of that headline on my blog which was picked up by many national media blogs, including Poynter’s Romenesko site and Mediabistro.com. I did it with little or no discussion with superiors and no idea what the professional consequences would be.
I also criticized TBT’s pattern of running in-your face headlines to go with stories written for our main paper which are more fairly balanced.
When the New York Times ran a blindingly complimentary article about our business model, I wrote a blog post which pointed out that it was a mistaken hypothesis, given all the reductions we’re going through these days.
And this is nothing new: When Columbia Journalism Review came here to do what turned out to be a puff piece on our newspaper, i was the only staffer quoted who said something non-complimentary, when i stressed that the newspaper had a problem with its lack of staff diversity.
True enough, I haven’t lodged the kind of shrill complaints you may have seen elsewhere about our size reductions or the daily TBT or our coverage of rap music. But that’s partly because I can’t help seeing those issues in different terms because I work here and I know these projects from the inside out.
Wayne’s right. I’m not an ombudsman . I don’t have a contract which guarantees my employment no matter what I write. My main job isn’t even covering the newspaper industry; it’s covering television. So I have to pick my shots carefully.
But I do try to call issues as i see them and criticize my employer when it is fair and necessary.
I think people of good conscience can agree to disagree on whether I’ve made the right call every time.”
December 12th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Eric, I will make a note of your comments in an update.
I tend to like your media criticism and took your side in your (shall we say) disagrrements with Bill O’Reilly. Your defense of your employers handling of the Mark Foley story baffles me. I generally think The Times is one of the best newspapers in the country. Your defense came off as damage control.
Wayne, brings up an interesting point of both local newspapers hands off policy in pointing out journalistic sins. It leaves readers less informed.
Blogs have become the fifth estate and fact-check the media. They often bring up bogus allegations. Power Line and Michelle Malkin are textbook examples.
It is surreal that Sticks of Fire and Pushing Rope have media clout. I receive links from Eric Alterman, Air America, the Telegraph and the Guardian. The truth is bloggers such as myself and Tommy Duncan know what will stick, network with other bloggers and media people. I have three blog friends that got hired by Raw Story. We have become part of the media, literally and figuratively. I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing. I wish the media would do a better job policing itself so blogs don’t have to.
Disclosure: I have huge conflicts of interest with Raw Story.
December 12th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Eric — thanks for taking so much time to weigh in with your response, it is extensive and helpful to the readers here. Good points all the way around, although I am really wondering about Michael’s comments re: the Fifth Estate. Can you really have a vibrant alt-alt-media in the blogosphere when it clearly isn’t mass media? In other words, none of the online endeavors reaches enough people to achieve the critical mass needed for Democracy, and those blog-driven stories only gather enough steam to change public policy or impact the political process when they are picked up and affect the mainstream, i.e., mass media and its large numbers of consumers. More and more today, that means TV news as the print journalism world suffers from declining circ and resources. I worry that we no longer have mass media to study and think about, we have tribalized media where groups of like-minded individuals can pick and choose the information they want to read and want to believe and avoid being challenged by ideas or facts that don’t fit their world view.