Roger DeMott, who’s “a member of the Democrat and Chronicle’s Sounding Board”, whatever that means, has an opinion piece in today’s D&C about the race in NY-25. His basic point is that Rochester hasn’t seen a competitive Congressional race in a long time, and that will be a new experience for Rochesterians. That’s right as far as it goes, though the Rochester media market has seen contested races in the current NY-29 (which includes the southeast suburbs) in 2006 and 2008, a competitive race in the current NY-25 (northeast suburbs) in 2010, and a special election in the current NY-26 (western suburbs) last year, which means a good number of the residents of the new NY-25 know exactly what it feels like to experience a competitive election.
Setting aside the content of Roger’s piece, here’s my question for the D&C, which just laid off another 18 reporters, including some long-time columnists. Why doesn’t this contribution merit the gigantic disclaimer attached to all of you local blogs:
Is DeMott an employee of the D&C? Or are you just wanting to maintain some kind of artificial distinction between community-contributed content that only appears online and the same type of content that appears in print? We already know that you consider online a dumping ground for “inappropriate” content. Yet, in May, you’re going to ask us to pay to sort through the trash in your dump. Perhaps you can enlighten us with seven commandments, or three, or even one, that explains the difference between online, print, blogs and opinion.
I have some friends (well, ok, one friend) writing for the D&C community blogs, so I’ll say this gently: D&C’s community blogs are their version of the literary ghetto. D&C has been trying to figure out what to do with the idea of anyone but them expressing an opinion on news since Ganett founded this POS, shambolic mess of a journalism simulacrum. The D&C was founded, after all, expressly for the purposes of creating a Republican mouthpeice in a town that was, to Gannett’s tastes, entirely too Democratic.
What’s interesting to me is that with fewer paid reporters on staff, some kind of community journalism effort on the part of the D&C would make sense, but they have no base from which to build since they’re so damn scared of anyone who isn’t an official employee expressing an opinion.