Boston Phoenix: House pest. The biggest political story in Massachusetts right now is the state’s ongoing dalliance with casino gambling — but the biggest scoops haven’t been coming from the Globe or the Herald. Their source, instead, has been Yarmouth resident Peter Kenney, a/k/a the “Great Gadfly,” a sexagenarian carpenter and public-access-cable star who writes for CapeCodToday.com.
This should prompt some soul-searching at the big newspapers…
on Sep 15th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Soul-searching…
Well, the Cape Cod Times is so appreciative that it announced a CasinoWatch blog a few weeks back: “We launch this new blog with a guest column by media writer Dan Kennedy whose MediaNation is perhaps the best of all sources for information about this subject.” (Dan, while offering praise for Kenney at times, in turn said today that “The most detailed overview of what’s going on right now is provided in the Cape Cod Times by reporters George Brennan and Stephanie Vosk.”)
CCT also neglected to list Kenney’s contributions to the unfolding story in its Glenn Marshall timeline (Marshall being the ersatz tribal leader who stepped down after Kenney reported that he lied about his military record and had been convicted of rape in 1981).
Actually, the Timeline doesn’t give mention to any individual reporter. But evolving timelines (more than soul-searching) should be a standard part of the online journalism experience. They should explain what happened when–and who reported it, when.
In addition, what Reilly missed was that CCT gave Kenney another blog, the Barnstable County Reporter. I’m not sure whether Kenney’s blog posts are making the print edition, or whether they’re now cutting him some freelance checks. (Can anyone argue why they shouldn’t?)
What’s good is that a long-time community journalist such as Kenney has stepped up, tapped local sources (such as the Binghams), and Cape Cod Today has recognized his contributions. What’s still a mess is following this story.
I can add any more links because your filter will punish me. So I’ll post an expanded version on Civilities later.
on Sep 15th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Mea Culpa! Dan Kennedy corrected me. I have massively confused the Cape Cod Times with the Cape Cod Today.
The former is a daily newspaper, founded in 1936, with a circulation with 50,000, owned by Ottoway, a subsidiary of Dow Jones, owned by you-know-who. The latter is a website founded in 1997, apparently as an advertising service, which has grown into a nice community journalism site, with 116 bloggers (25 updating in the last week), and with Peter Kenney breaking some major news stories. (Note to readers outside the state: the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe look is in Mashpee, on the Cape; the proposed casino is in Middleborough off-Cape, but closer to the Cape than to Boston.)
And Cape Cod Today has heretofore been missing from the hyperlocal/CitJ accolades.
Curiously enough, Cape Cod Today still distinguishes “news” (as reported by Kenney and unnamed editorial staff) from “blogs” (Kenney and a hundred others). This is a group that is clearly breaking boundaries for citizen blogger-reporters, yet it’s still trapped by the blogs-vs-news lexicon.
The bottom line, to the point of your post, is that I don’t think the Globe feels the heat from CJ competition, particularly in another part of the state. The one directly in competition with the Cape Cod Times is Cape Cod Today. Both are too small for Alexa’s
The hyperlink above, to CapeCodInline, represents the Cape Cod Times, the newspaper.