the Northampton blogosphere gets some well deserved praise (if I do say so myself)

Paolo Mastrangelo, a great blogger and journalist who splits his time between NYC and Northampton, made some commentary about David Simon, former journalist and creator of "The Wire" and "Generation Kill", in his latest blog post. Apparently, Simon--usually one of my heroes for his ability to make the most of television as an art form, creating amazing, truthful depictions of the war on drugs, urban life, Marine culture and the war in Iraq--asked a senate committee to legalize monopolistic collusion by newspapers, claiming in this hearing on the future of journalism that bloggers cannot be classed in the same league as print journalists since they're not down in the trenches like old school reporters are: "...bloggers don't go to city council meetings, or know what the hell is going on if they do — a clichéd, out of touch refrain common among newspapermen who can't be bothered to do any reporting on the assertion."



Mastangelo finds this statement odd, because as one Gawker writer claims "as a newspaper reporter who spent a few years covering a town much like Baltimore — Oakland, California — [he] often found that bloggers were the only other writers in the room at certain city council committee meetings and at certain community events. They tended to be the sort of persistently-involved residents newspapermen often refer to as "gadflies" — deeply, obsessively concerned about issues large and infinitesimal in the communities where they lived."

Especially in *this* community:

"Citizens, gadflys, bloggers, concerned residents, whatever you want to call them. They don't cover the local news. At least not like a local newspaper does. And thank you for that. Thanks Mary Serreze, Mike Kirby, VFR Joel Saxe (Bread & Roses Radio), Daryl Lafluer,Kelsey Flynn,Greg Saulmon,Tommy Devine,Pinac, the crew from the early days of Mass Live, and the rest of you. Really, thanks. Talk about adding value to your community.

"Could you imagine if the Daily Hampshire Gazette was the only news source for Northampton? Only recently it was. "Local luminary has cancer." "Hey, look, a truck fell into the pond!" "Another year, another parade..." etc...

"I don't remember too much from my young teen years, but I do remember sitting at the kitchen table most days after middle school aghast at reading the Gazette, and saying to my mom, "this paper is so bad. who is this "news" for? Who is signing off on this shit?!" True story, she'll tell you.

"I'm very appreciative that it is no longer the only source of "news and info" because those days sucked."

It's a rush for our organization's little blog to be included in such august company, and it's vindicating to finally rewarded for all the city council meetings our organization's members have sat through. And it's true, I see the folks mentioned above at so many important city events, often while local traditional news outlets make only a brief appearance only to dash off somewhere they think is more important. And unlike traditional news staff, most of us bloggers are unpaid volunteers. So it's nice to be recognized.

Read all of Mastrangelo's article here, the Gawker piece here, more on the testimonies at the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet's hearing on the “Future of Journalism” with testimony from Ariana Huffington, Marissa Mayer, the Dallas Morning News' James Moroney, and more from David Simon at techcrush, and David Carr backing up David Simon's views in the NY Times here.