[RP TownTalk] Reporters on the list serve

[Nina Faye]

Maya, I think the point of the complaints pertains to the reporter being asked not to discuss an "illegal" bird that has become part of the neighborhood.  Printing the information showed a lack of sensitivity to community desires, code enforcement issues, and community culture.  It is understandable to troll for stories, but it is also understandable that there would be backlash when "lines" are crossed.  By the way, we used to stay at a bed and breakfast in a very upscale area of Philadelphia near Fairmount Park, where the neighbors had pet chickens.  The neighborhood loved those chickens, and we enjoyed them as well.  I have also read articles about chickens in Seattle.  When the topic came up on the HOPE list, a number of people commented that there was only an unpleasant smell when they were not properly cared for--just like dog poop and litter boxes.  Nina

--- On Thu, 2/26/09, thebee32 at aol.com <thebee32 at aol.com> wrote:

From: thebee32 at aol.com <thebee32 at aol.com>
Subject: [RP TownTalk] Reporters on the list serve
To: towntalk at riverdale-park.org
Date: Thursday, February 26, 2009, 3:39 PM



So, as a former Gazette reporter who covered your town, I decided to stay out of this conversation. But considering it's been about a week of people complaining about Ms. Izadi's use of TownTalk to find story ideas, I decided to add my 2 cents.

Like many people have said, TownTalk is a public forum and completely searchable via quick Internet search. Check out your former posts, by month, going back to August 2005 here: http://riverdale-park.org/pipermail/towntalk/. Anything that is written on here completely public. If you don't like the idea of anyone with an Internet connection being able to know your thoughts on any given topic, don't post it on the Internet. It's that simple.

I can say I haven't read the rooster article, but I do know how many articles I've written after getting the idea from the list serve - articles that many of you TownTalkers raved about and linked to on this list serve. How else do you think we would know about open houses, international nights, mosaic murals at Riverdale Elementary school, or different events at the Farmers Market or Riversdale, or the Riverdale Railfans? It's rare that we get an e-mail directly asking us to cover something, yet these are all things that I was personally thanked for writing - things I learned of on TownTalk

While I understand some of you might be upset about the one rooster article, think about the numerous articles the Gazette has written over the years to highlight the exciting things that happen in your town before you call for a boycott of a paper whose entire purpose is to feature the things that happen in your community. Think about what you can read in the Gazette about Riverdale Park as opposed to the extremely negative stories that are usually the only ones to get picked up by the bigger papers - such as those two incidents in the department of public works that happened over the past few years that I know we'd all like to forget (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/16/AR2007071601652_pf.html and http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/13/AR2007121301540_pf.html).

Just my 2 cents, written from the perspective of someone who thoroughly enjoyed covering your town and is saddened by the response I've seen over the past week.



--
Maya T. Prabhu
Quintana St., Riverdale Heights




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