Monday, September 14, 2009

Dinosaur Media

I checked our local newspaper website (ajc.com) Sunday morning to get some glimpse of how the 9/12 D.C. march went. Nothing.

I clicked on the Nation/World news tab. Nothing.

I typed "9/12 protest Washington DC" into the search bar. Nothing.

This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man.


So I fire off an email to the public editor:

from Garry Jenkins
to insideajc@ajc.com
date Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 1:39 PM
subject No mention of 9/12 Washington DC rally on ajc.com
mailed-by gmail.com

Sep 13 (2 days ago)

I checked the ajc.com homepage, news tab, and nation & world sections online and there was no mention of the 9/12 rally in Washington DC yesterday. Why is a protest of Americans, ranging in size from tens of thousand to over one million (depending on the source), not worthy of even a basic mention on your website?

--
Garry M. Jenkins


Well today I heard back:

from insideajc@ajc.com>
to Garry Jenkins
date Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:59 AM
subject RE: No mention of 9/12 Washington DC rally on ajc.com
mailed-by ajc.com

10:59 AM (8 hours ago)


Mr. Jenkins,

Thanks for your note.

We actually covered the rally and had it on the front page of the print edition and it was online for some time, but somehow got dropped off the page online. We are checking into what happened.

Kind regards,
Shawn McIntosh
AJC Public editor


Very pleasant and polite response, but essentially full of crap.

If the story was previously on the website, why didn't it show up in the search?

Additionally, why pull it so quickly? People are still talking about this today.

Whoa - looks like the stories are back. Figures. Nevermind.

But wait! You still have to search for it to find any articles. No link on the main news pages. Also, front page is coverage of a protest at a Grady Hospital board that had all of . . . 100 people.

Good grief.

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