Bethany Anderson demonstrates the growing influence of independent blogs.
Late yesterday afternoon (5 p.m. exactly), Bethany outed the Vote No! campaign for using Councilmember Angela Hunt’s picture and quotes on their web site in yet another dishonest and desperation tactic. A few emails from her and a few hours later, Angela Hunt was all over it, the print press (Dallas Observer and Dallas Morning News) picked up on it, and the Vote No! folks conceded their underhanded tactic and pulled the pics and quotes.
Score another one for the independent bloggers.
She would have been even more impressive if she had followed through on contacting Hunt, etc. on her own, but even so tipping off the real journalists who then investigated, confirmed and completed the story was a nice start. Kudos to Bethany for taking an interest.
I thought Bethany’s cute little blog was all recipes and Idol analysis. No?
It’s pretty clear that’s why she let Bob and Dave do the real journalism work. Still, tipping him off was a step beyond, as you put it, “all recipes and Idol analysis”. One step at a time, can’t fault her for that. Again, kudos to Bethany for at least taking the step.
Actually, Angela was the first person I e-mailed, and she responded on my blog.
I was responding via phone before, but a further explanation:
I saw the site, and then took a screen shot and wrote up the post on my blog. I also e-mailed Angela Hunt, and asked her about what was on the site as well.
In the meantime, I e-mailed two friends – Robert Wilonsky and Dave Levinthal – to get their feedback. They also e-mailed or called Angela.
She responded to all three of us. Robert and Dave were generous enough to give me credit for having eyeballs and a brain.
Gee, Brent…it’s not clear to me at all why she “let” them do the “real” journalism work. The better question is WHY they weren’t in the loop to begin with.