Eric Spillman writes for KTLA:
Blogs are useful and entertaining, but most of them do not substitute for legitimate news. Sometimes they scoop us in the "mainstream media." But sometimes they report gossip that turns out to be false. Just because they print stuff doesn’t mean it’s true.
I read the blogs to see what they’re chattering about. But I know they are just a starting point for real reporting.
I respond in the comments section:
You mean blogs make mistakes just like you do? Wow, profound insight. How much do you get paid for that?
You in the MSM don’t have a monopoly on the craft of reporting.
Matt Drudge has broken more news than KTLA over the past decade. He’s just a blogger. You have a large staff. What’s your excuse?
How come your station and the LA Times didn’t break the news on the mayor’s sham marriage? Because you guys are shoddy, lazy, and pompous in your work. You think you know better (that the public doesn’t need to know this information).
You write: "But the bloggers got the story only half right. Some of their posts reported that Salinas was pregnant… which is something the mayor adamantly denies."
So how do you know that she was never impregnated by the mayor? You don’t. You make the assumption that what the mayor tells you is truth. That’s why you and your peers who play this way are shoddy journalists.
You write: "And there were more rumors. Some blog entries mentioned the names of other alleged Villaraigosa girlfriends. One of the names was that of a Korean-American businesswoman who serves on the city’s planning commission. Both she and the mayor say they’ve never dated each other."
Once again you assume that what you were told is truth. You’re a credulous suck-up.
I’m not arguing that you should assume that the reports are true about the mayor having an affair with Sabrina Kay. I’m saying you’re a fool for accepting that what the mayor says is true (because you are so eager to rescue the besmirched reputation of the MSM on this story and to trash bloggers).
For Eric Spillman and his ilk, real reporting is getting comment from the principals in a story and then accepting those comments as truth (so long as there is no overwhelming evidence to the contrary).
What’s pathetic is that by judging by what Spillman just blogged, it hasn’t even occurred to him that the mayor might not be speaking the truth. That’s "real reporting"?
Why is a guy who hasn’t broken any ground on this story (when did Eric Spillman last break a big story?) giving lectures to those of us who have broken ground?
