Incredibly, I can think of a lot of reasons why not to attend a KATU-TV sponsored Portland-area blogger meet-up for which I just received an Evite. How about you? My favorite decline thus far:
I would come if I didn't live in New York. But I'm always interested in carpooling.
High comedy in the r.s.v.p.s:
"KATU is the most irresponsible and disgusting channel on the air in the pacific northwest. Worse than Fox and not in any way representative of Portland."
Even better:
"I don't really consider myself a "blogger". To be more succinct, I'm a writer trying to sell, who writes in an online diary."
Is that a yes or a no? C'mon, KATU needs to know how many cheese logs to buy.
Posted by: Kevin | August 21, 2007 at 12:07 PM
I can think of one very good reason to attend: It looks like my friend Terry Heaton, one of the world's gentle, giving, thinkingn souls, is going to be there.
Posted by: Jackie Danicki | August 21, 2007 at 12:13 PM
Well, as usual I didn't get invited. But I'm pretty good at crashing the party so maybe I'll do that just anyway. And blog about it of course...
I can also rip Katu a new asshole for their irresponsible tabloid tv journalism.
Sounds like fun!
Posted by: Cuisinebonnefemme | August 21, 2007 at 12:58 PM
Gee, i would've loved to hear some of your reasons!! How about: "Don't use the PDX blogging community to shamelessly advertise your vanilla blogs and boring local newscasts?"
Posted by: bb | August 21, 2007 at 01:38 PM
bb, I am interested in hearing others' opinions before I give my two cents. This one, from the Portland Mercury post about it [http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/2007/08/katu_hosts_local_blogger_party.php], and re: the invites saying (with exclamation points!) that we could take pictures of the studio, really made me laugh:
"Wow, photographs of a TV studio-I can't believe they are letting bloggers into that gilded paradise of wonder"
Posted by: nancy | August 21, 2007 at 01:44 PM
I got invited, but I'm not going. I'm a foreign correspondent and have no interest in listening to local bloggers bloviate about school boards, light rail, and gentrification.
I mean, gentification is actually an interesting subject, but no one in Portland save our Nancy has ever written anything balanced and intelligent about it.
(If I hear one more comparison between gentficiation and ethnic cleansing I'm going to pop someone. Ethnic cleansing happens in places like Bosnia, Darfur, and Iraq, not Portland.)
No thanks.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten | August 21, 2007 at 03:58 PM
"Our Nancy."
I love Michael Totten.
Anyway, I am not going, either, because the whole thing strikes me as nine years too late and flat-footed. It's as if KATU knows there's this thing called blogging, and they don't want to be thought of as squares, ergo, the best way to harness local bloggers' energy and intelligence and make it work to their advantage is... uh, well, we're not sure. Just send a couple of hundred Evites, get 'em all in a room; give 'em beer -- bloggers like beer, right? And then, once they're here, and hopefully dazzled to be in proximity of a real news outlet, we'll figure out what to do with them.
Figure what out? That bloggers take matters into their own hands to write as long and as frequently (or infrequently) as they damn well please and without interference, about genocide and war (www.michaeltotten.com)? Books and the media (www.kevinallman.com)? That, without anyone saying, "here's your beat," they run circles around the local papers when it comes to food coverage in Portland (www.portlandfoodanddrink.com)? And that all of this is done without a boss, without a paycheck, without commercials.
Maybe I underestimate KATU. Maybe they do understand all this, and really do want to be part of it. Cool! They should be. Let the reporters blog, without editing. Let commenters comment, without being vetted. Heck, let the cleaning lady blog -- I'd read that. It's easy, it's essentially free, and, lovely of lovelies, it's a real meritocracy, readers gravitating where they want, and spreading the word, purely because what they're reading appeals to them. That's why every blogger loves blogging.
Now, if someone at KATU had contacted me, and said, "We like what you do, Nancy, and we'd love to take you for a drink, just because we think you're smart and we'd like to pick your brain about blogging" -- and yes I realize that, with my readers numbering in the high two-digits, this is enormously presumptive, but bear with me -- I would have gone for sure. I love to meet people; I love to meet people smarter than me, which isn't hard. This last is the only reason I see for attending the KATU dealie.
A long and turgid way of saying what a commentor over on the Merc site said, oh so very nicely:
"Well, I for one got into blogging mainly as a way to gain entrance to local news studios. The plan is obviously rolling out apace."
Posted by: nancy | August 21, 2007 at 04:28 PM
I too, hereby offer my services as "blogging consultant" to KATU. $600 an hour.
Posted by: Matt Davis | August 21, 2007 at 04:40 PM
Jaq, if you're reading this, I invite you to talk a little bit about what you do in the area Matt Davis mentions, and also, recount a few of the misadventures in corporate blogging you've so wonderfully reported. Better yet, I'd love to run and/or link a post about this, from you.
Posted by: nancy | August 21, 2007 at 04:47 PM
I'd go. I intend no disrespect to Nancy or Michael, both highly respected by me and others. But I'd go just to find out on my own what the whole thing amounted to. I like to figure that stuff out for myself.
Really, what's the worst that could happen? I'll betcha it's miniscule in comparison to what we've already known as knocks or hard bruises.
Eat some spinach, Nancy, and attend! Then, when or if you want to point out the meeting's flaws, we'll have insight based on knowledge, not speculation, as to what's up in your opinion.
I dare you!
Posted by: Curtis | August 21, 2007 at 09:20 PM
I agree with Curtis. I'd go. Why not? Isn't everything just grist for the mill? I'm always amazed at odd connections I've made by just just showing up. (I have to admit, however, that the whole see the inside of a TV studio bit is POWERFUL... my resistence may have been weakened by such a lure)>
I'd not attend only if it conflicted with one of my son's baseball games or, in your case, your daughter's runway show.
BTW... is KATU the one that had Kathy Smith? I always found her extremely hot. That would be a draw.
Posted by: Loren Minnick | August 22, 2007 at 02:29 PM
Loren agrees with me, Nancy, making good points I didn't think of.
Do a Popeye, Nancy. Down some spinach and just go to it.
Posted by: Curtis | August 22, 2007 at 08:57 PM
I would totally read a blog written by the cleaning lady at KATU. I'd rather read that than a blog written by one of their reporters. What fascinating things she must see and hear.
I, too, hereby offer my services as a paid blogging consultant for KATU.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten | August 23, 2007 at 02:16 PM
Clarification: Kathy Smith, circa 1975. (And don't forget Emerald Yeh, same era. I once saw her at Zuni's, eating lunch with Sylvia Chase. Good times.)
Posted by: Loren Minnick | August 23, 2007 at 04:22 PM
That comment above is what happens when I leave Tool Man at home alone while I'm at work.
Posted by: Tiggywinkleknits | August 29, 2007 at 03:59 PM
When I lived in Portland we used to have little blogger meet-ups without any TV station helping us, and some of them were kind of amusing. When Barry Ampersand found out that I don't have actual horns, I was afraid he'd have a heart attack, for example.
And I used to brag about having been to blogger meet-ups in three states, but everybody has a blog now, so what's the point?
Posted by: Richard Bennett | August 30, 2007 at 03:46 PM