I almost hate to give this any attention whatsoever, but, y’know, if I don’t, it’s just gonna fester.
Yesterday, I was talking to my buddy Michael Jensen, editor of AfterElton.com, and he asked, “Did you hear about the column that Ray Richmond wrote?” I had not. Apparently, Richmond had written a column on July 6th about the then-impending TCA Press Tour, and the premise of the piece had involved the fact that there was precious little buzz about the tour for an event that hadn’t occurred in a year. (The winter tour had, of course, been canceled as a result of the WGA strike.) Beyond that, however, he vented about how the good old days are dead and gone, that the networks don’t pay to fly the writers out to the tour any more, and – worst of all – now that newspapers have been cutting back on their expenses, too, many of the spots in the TCA have been replaced by…horror of horrors…bloggers.
Now, it’s one thing to throw out this line:
…the sessions too often devolve into a two-pronged affair: those who are too consumed with their live-blogging to participate in an intelligent discourse and those repping lightweight blogs whose queries are of the trivial, “Have you always been so hot?” variety.
It’s quite another, however, to offer up this sneered sentence:
With several major newspapers refusing to send anyone to TCA because of the expense, the registered attendees now feature the likes of BuddyTV.com, Bullz-Eye.com, AfterElton.com, GirlPower.com and Visimag.com.
Now I see why Michael was up in arms…and I don’t blame him. Nor would I blame any of the other sites from getting miffed about finding themselves cited in Richmond’s piece. But right this second, I’m only going to respond on my own behalf.
Really, Ray? You’re going to call me out…and, yes, when you cite Bullz-Eye.com, it is me you’re calling out, since I’m the one who’s attending on behalf of the site…as an attendee who’s unworthy of attendance? Look, man, I went to college and earned my Bachelor of Arts in English, Journalism & Communications. I’ve spent the better part of two decades doing the freelance writing thing – sometimes paid, sometimes not – and I’ve finally found my way to an organization that’s sufficiently appreciative of my efforts to provide me with a full-time opportunity to write for a living. For that matter, I’m also a freelancer for The Virginian-Pilot, offering up articles about the local television market in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. In short, I’m a writer. Yes, I have my computer open during the panels, but calling my contributions “live blogging” is really overstating things; I’m a one-man operation, so I’m generally listening to one panel while writing about one from the previous day…or possibly two days ago, depending on how far behind I’ve fallen. I’m asking questions during the panels when I think they can add something to the conversation, and when the panels conclude, if there’s a panelist for whom I have additional questions, I’m hot on their heels. I don’t think I’ve ever asked anyone if they’ve “always been so hot,” though I admit that it was on the tip of my tongue when Ed Asner was talking about how well “Lou Grant” has held up over the years as a portrait of life in a newspaper bullpen and discussing his feelings on the possibility of an SGA strike. (Grrrrrrr, baby!)
Okay, I’m not going to spend any more time on this, except to close by saying this to Mr. Richmond: I think it was pretty crass of you to call out specific sites as examples of the lowered standards of the TCA membership. I get that you think that the good old days are gone, but yesterday I had the opportunity to listen to Joan Leslie discuss working with Gary Cooper on “Sergeant York,” and today I thrilled to Mark Oliver Everett chatting about his father’s work in the field of parallel universes. For me, the good old days are right now, and I hope to utilize them to educate and entertain both myself and the people who read my stuff.
Sorry if that doesn’t meet your rigorous standards.
