Reflections on blogging--and another David's musing on journalistic myopia

A few comments from The Other David: In his latest audio item, David Faucheux envies the smooth delivery of TV announcers. I don't know about all the tricks there. But David and others might be interested in knowing that National Public Radio, a favorite network of his, often edits both hosts and guests to make them sound more articulate. Check out an item in the Brand Autopsy blog--headlined The Dark Room Magic of NPR. It's based on an On the Media program that I heard myself, so I know that the blogged summary is accurate.

And speaking of the media: David's hometown newspaper did not carry a word about his appearance in LISNews or his chatcast even though I emailed the editors about both. This is not the first time that the Lafayette Daily Advertiser fell down on the job after being told of an obvious human interest story. If memory serves, it's Try Number Three.

The Gannett-owned Advertiser is not the New York Times in terms of a news threshold, and I remain puzzled why David's own hometown newspaper refuses to write about his accomplishments on the Web. Netphobia or blindphobia or just another instance of a tightwad media conglomerate that can't do local news right? Some months ago an Advertiser editor did promise me that she would assign a story, but nothing ever happened. How surrealistic that the Advertiser can run national copy from USA Today about MP3 fans tuning into podcasting, but not record my friend's triumphs in the newspaper's own city.

Hello, Advertiser? As of this week, David himself is now even podcasting. Why, by refusing to write about David, are you depriving local people of a chance to learn about David and enjoy his work? You and Gannett's top executives owe David an apology. Your company puts out its share of PR ballyhoo about corporate diversity in a racial context. So why not a syllable on David in his own hometown newspaper? Racial diversity is a laudable goal, but what about another minority, the millions of disabled Americans, a number likely to grow as the babybooms age and acquire their share of problems, including visually related ones? Not to mention all the families of the disabled who would appreciate the coverage. Simply put, ignoring the disabled is plain bad business, not just callous.

This media myopia is just one more reason why blogging is so valuable and why, despite AudioBlogger's lack of editing tools, David remains grateful for his chance to speak out.

In stark contrast to the Advertiser, Dean Beth M. Paskoff of the School of Library and Information Science at Louisiana State University gave David Faucheux's fellow graduates a nice heads-up about the LISNews item about him. Way to go, Dean! It's not as if Blind Chance has millions of visitors, this is like any other specialized blog, but, yes, it is drawing its share of attention, enjoys a steady stream of international traffic from places like Vietnam, and probably would fare still better if the local media gave David his due. If LSU's future librarians want to know about blogging in real life on library-related topics, the school just might want to invite David Faucheux to give a presentation. Along the way, Dean Paskoff, this would be an excellent chance to sensitize your young librarians and others to disability issues. Who knows, maybe David's hometown paper would then be just a little less blind to an obvious news story.

- David Rothman (speaking absolutely just for himself and not necessarily for David F)

Detail: I'm going to e-mail Tara Connell, Gannett's vice president of corporate communications, and see if her company can educate the myopic editors in Lafayette and ideally apply the lessons to newspapers in other communities. - D.R.