Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Burg for mayor

Check this article on SacPress and the subsequent comment. Bill Burg is the best!

Babs: hates whistles. Who knew?Here's Scott's pictures from Amsterdam that I uploaded without his permission. I'm hoping he'll write some captions.












18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does that drawing of a Horse/Mule on the salami mean the salami was horsemeat?

Also, -overal zonnen- rules.

-ec

Jeff M. said...

The photo of the bike is really nice.

As a fan of scott's thread humor, I second the motion that he should take time out from his sightseeing and do a little guest blogging.

Anonymous said...

The horse salami was awesome! Eating it in a park while drinking a t'IJ Plzen made it even better.

-miller

Anonymous said...

ossenworst is my new favorite food.

JD

Anonymous said...

The real question is why sactopress allowed West to post that 'Article' without identifying who he was? WTF?

This is supposed to be journalism?

-sad in sacto

Anonymous said...

Ossenworst sounds so good!

"oxen sausage" but like steak tartare with spices

JD- is it cooked? Or maybe just minimally cooked? I can't tell from what I'm reading elsewhere.

-ec

Anonymous said...

what an ugly cat

wburg said...

sad in sacto: People who write articles on Sacramento Press can post directly to the site--there is no editorial vetting of articles before they are posted. Nobody checks them out first, so things like that can happen. However, several regular readers/posters have finely honed bullshit detectors and point out such things.

And, in Sacpress' defense, when the story made the 'front page' the next day it was listed as 'Mayor's brother on the defensive.'

Anonymous said...

"People who write articles on Sacramento Press can post directly to the site--there is no editorial vetting of articles before they are posted."

so this basically answers the question. It's not journalism.

Anonymous said...

I guess ossenworst is cold smoked? Or maybe in some cases only? I don't know. It definitely has an utterly raw texture, with the outer edges a bit darker in color and more dried out and firm. Yeah, now I think of it, there is a subtle smokiness to it, but real understated. And the mace and other spices are real subtle too. You can see it in the picture with the brew; it looks a bit like salami but they cut it thick and it's freakin raw. I didn't know what it was when I ordered it and it took a minute to get over the rawness. Then the rawness was the draw! It doesn't look like you can get it in the states? That sucks.

Anonymous said...

To clarify, the ossenworst is in the photo with the glasses of brew and the meatball with mustard (which was also amazing), not the photo of the bottle of beer and horse salami

JD

Anonymous said...

Nope it doesn't look good for getting it easily in the states. No way you could import that sucker. But there is probably some Dutch/US butcher somewhere who makes them. Aged beef & spices, in a casing that is smoked SO so so slowly, that it's still raw inside. bold move.

-ec

Jeff M. said...

so this basically answers the question. It's not journalism

But I think you missed wburg's point. This article is not indicative of all of Sac Press's content, some of which is written by traditional (re: paid) journalist and some of it by "citizen journalist" (re: bloggers).

The fact that the article in question quickly drew fire makes me hopeful about Sac Press as a medium. It's not as if the Bee wouldn't have also quoted KJ's minions on this issue. And who would counter the KJ POV? Probably not people who would do it most vigorously, such as wburg. It would probably be another political figure whose opinions would probably be mediated by considerations other than the plain truth.

As a journalistic medium, Sac Press has its limitations, to be sure, but to dismiss it simply as "not journalism" is wrongheaded.

wburg said...

I think of Sacramento Press as sort of an experiment. A lot of people posting articles have gotten into the habit of mentioning connection to events--when I post about some history thing I'm doing, I mention it, as does Deeann or Lurch from MOBS when they plug a film. Several users who started out posting with pseudonyms have been encouraged to use their real name, in order to encourage a sort of civility not found, say, in the Bee comments section, while others still use them.

So no, it isn't journalism in the traditional sense, but not in the same way that, say, Fox News isn't journalism: instead of filtering and distorting news towards a specific demographic through a particular agenda. It is an essentially uncontrolled mixture of news and opinion, fact and fiction, and maybe even something like The Realist in that respect. But unlike The Realist, not even the editors know which is which. Maybe you could call it anarchist journalism.

The difference, what makes it more like a blog, is that the readers can immediately respond to nonsense. Imagine if Fox News allowed viewers to hit a button that hurled insults, lawn darts and rabid squirrels at Glenn Beck whenever he said something they realized was non-factual.

Heck, if they did that, I'd be a regular viewer.

beckler said...

When they were talking about ossenwurst it sounded like they were saying "awesomewurst". Why are Americans prohibited from all the best things? Legalize wurst first. Then, weed.

I am going to assume that anonymous means the cat with the Hitler mustache, not my precious, whistle-hating baby.

DJ Rick said...

Goatee kitty is awesome!

Anonymous said...

I'm enjoying how the dialogue ping-pongs effortlessly between cats, web journalism, celebrity mayor, and sausage. Total heckasac.

Jed

Ben Ilfeld said...

I am one of the founders of The Sacramento Press and I am glad that this debate is raging here and elsewhere.

I do hope that people do not feel duped. We strive to be open and transparent. When an author is not transparent it is egg on our faces as well.

Thank you to those in our community who brought the issue up in the conversation (comment section). Much of the time our conversations contain key information because readers challenge authors and scrutinize the article.

I will be following up in the next couple of days by seeding a conversations about our failings and some possible solutions.