I totally see this letter writer's point. Although I found the tawdry details of the "bat mitzvah gone awry" hilarious, it would be nice to have positive community events, such as the Mill River Playground anniversary, also covered and photographed in the paper. But,
a) does he think the Advocate has dozens of photographers to send all over town? Hello, budget cuts!
b) this is why you start your own blog; so you can cover what YOU are interested in.
Oh, and
c) this is another great reason for the Advocate to have their own blogs. There is just not enough official newspaper space for everything, so it's nice that the Advocate has started a few blogs of their own.
I don't have time to figure out how many blogs they have exactly, but the main one is Stamford 411 and it's definitely worth reading. The journalists and photographers (actually, the photographers have their own blog, In Sight) have a huge window onto life in Stamford, and the more we hear from them, the better.
Scroll down on the main Stamford 411 to see other staff blogs listed on the right.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Scandalous Bat Mitzvah, Stamford Advocate Blogs
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9 comments:
ST,
I also understand the guy's point. I really do.
But the Advocate does, in fact, cover a lot of these things though. We do profiles of all kinds of people for all kinds of positive reasons.
But the most interesting thing about the letter, in my opinion, was that I personally WAS AT one of the events he singled out as something we didn't cover, you know, covering it.
Anyway. I'm about to post something I saw on the way to the supermarket on the photoblog right now...
–CP
Also,
Actually, this is a more accurate list of all the current blogs:
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/blogs
The list in the sidebar of Stamford 411 is a work in progress (read: I haven't updated it lately)
I, of course, am partial to my blog: http://blog.ctnews.com/lunchbreak/
–CP
I thought the first article about the bat mitzvah gone wild was one of THE best articles I've ever read in The Advocate.
First, the description of the uncle getting arrested (and his wife saying "My husband is an ass when he drinks) was unsurpassed for hilarity.
And as the mom of children frighteningly few years shy of the children in the article? Ugh. I was horrified but glad to read the accounts of what was going on in the bathroom. Looks like THE TALK will happen a whole lot sooner than I thought.
I see plenty of coverage of positive things in The Advocate. Telling the truth about our community, in all of its unvarnished reality (whether on the blogs or in the official paper) can only be a good thing.
I wasn't all that offended by the Advocate's running this story, but questioned the editorial choice of a giant page-wide headline above the fold on the front page. You would have thought the partygoers ran a bordello for the evening and then burned the place to the ground. Was this really the most newsworthy event of the day in the entire Stamford/Norwalk area? I wasn't sure if I was reading the Advocate or the Enquirer. And I'm sure that without the salacious details of the bathroom activity, the minor trashing of the mansion would have been relegated to an inside page. I really don't expect much from the ever-shrinking Advocate, and I'm not sure why I still subscribe, but this was just some really weird journalism.
As someone who a) works with high school kids who are constantly getting arrested for stupid shit and b) had a bar mitzvah back in the day, I definitely don't find it "hilarious." But it definitely raises a lot of interesting points about the role of local journalism and what papers like the Advocate, the Greenwich Time, the Westport News, etc are "supposed" to be covering.
I'll be interested to see what this new Stamford Magazine adds to the mix. www.thestamfordmagazine.com
Yeah, maybe hilarious wasn't the right word, Jeff... I think I found the serious tone of the article (I mean, it had to be serious) amusing considering the Jerry Springer-like nature of the bat mitzvah.
I wasn't as incensed as some people regarding the negative coverage; that's what makes newspapers interesting to read; a newspaper isn't a bunch of press releases. I think that the choice of placement and the bold headline is what really set people off. I actually think that this was an interesting perspective on permissive parenting and the pampered nature of many Fairfield County kids.
I thought that this was a great article! I even read it to my 15 year old son!...AND, he was interested!!
After you've been to enough of these things and seen some that are full of excess and some that are really nice, it was a good, meaty, (in more ways than one,) cautionary tale, that needed to be told.
if anyone is waiting to have "The Talk" with their kids until they see this headline, then you may have waited too long, from what I hear of whats going on in school.
At the same time, I doubt that any kid is looking at any newspaper headline anywhere...to them newspapers are a quaint relic of a time gone by, and unless you've got it on your ...ugh...Kindle, I doubt they will even notice.
And hey, a little titilating party mishap with bj's in the bathroom is an interesting read in an otherwise boring life...
And when your kids grow up you will see that the parenting around some of these areas can be hit or miss...Ive seen parents drinking at young kid's birthday parties, like drunk!!...little kids unsupervised...
The bar and bat mitzvahs are just as unbelievable!...
My son was pretty old before I ever just dropped him off and drove away without walking in and looking around at what was going on.
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