Obituary:
On Friday, February 27th, 2009, the
Rocky Mountain News closed down. 55 days shy of 150 years of publishing, connecting citizens throughout Colorado and the world. 200 jobs were lost; all of those people listed on the last page of the final printing of this legacy in journalism. A very black Friday indeed. I was lucky enough to have a brief bit of my own personal work published in that paper before its demise.
A Prominent and Proud Murderer Boasts:
U.S. Rep. Jared Polis.
"I have to say, that when we say, 'Who killed the Rocky Mountain News,' we're all part of it, for better or worse, and I argue it's mostly for the better," Polis said, "The media is dead, and long live the new media, which is all of us,". "Since we killed the newspapers" and "own the media," bloggers and citizen journalists have a responsibility.
"We can't just kill it and walk away," he said. "It's important for all of us to reach out to some of those . . . on the other side and present the progressive point of view," he said.
~reported by the Denver Post.With an ironic twist and a back handed blow, Jared Polis denigrates the very form of media that
defended his stance on education for minorities as recently as July 24th, 2008. I wonder what former "opinion columns and blogs" editor & author of that passionate defense for Polis, Vincent Carroll, thinks of Mr. Polis' limited perspective, now.
It's true that convergent journalism and media is the wave of the future in that field. I will be part of that, but I
will not sell my soul to it as the solitary means of publishing news and maintaining communications between citizens of the world.
There is still a place for the format of media that is a foundation of the correspondence world we have now; newspapers. To state that it is "mostly for the better" that this printed legacy has met its dissolution is to wave away with indifference more than 150 years of hard work, sacrifice, truth, connection between people and the chronicles of humanity that lived every one of those days.
How dare you callously disregard that rich endowment.
Your words are filled with shallow indifference, and are tossed out with irresponsible, mindless disdain.
You've qualified yourself (and the entire populace of humanity) as 'citizen journalists of the world'... and that is a slap in the face of the professionals who hold together the entire media industry.
How dare you disrespect and dishonor every single one of those individuals.
Perhaps you think you have the education, tact, talent and time to produce the quality work that currently educates and informs the rest of the world. Judging by your ever-so-eloquent dismissal of the Rocky Mountain News, I'd say absolutely not. Your over-inflated confidence in the rest of the populace to produce responsible, unbiased, intelligible, accurate, timely, current news is not only entirely without base, it is unquestionably impossible. Best of luck with that whole notion.
Mr. Polis:
Do
NOT make the careless libertine assumption that all bloggers and online media are responsible for the cessation of the Rocky Mountain News and all of its ilk. You have no right whatsoever to include anyone but yourself in your ridiculously stated position. I am a blogger. I am an online media journalist. I am an 'in print' media journalist. I am a citizen. I fit nicely into each and every single category that your verbal incompetence has encompassed.
I demand of you that you
never assume that you may include me in your self-deprecating drivel. I give you neither license nor permission to name me or my work when you make thoughtless unsubstantiated statements about a subject that you very obviously know too little about. Next time you open your mouth, try to refer to only those people who actually stand with you in your transparent and flimsy ideals.
**Update**
Before I had the chance to publish this diatribe for you, Mr. Polis, I see that you've already come to the press that you so shamelessly flouted,
to offer regrets for your mindless remarks and ideas... you must have a very good public relations agent. That's good, Mr. Polis, it's painfully obvious that you desperately need one.
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