On Tuesday, I posted some thoughts on what I view as increasingly personal journalism being produced by the Chronicle.
I expected more of a response from professional journalists, but instead I got a sharply critical dissenting note from one professional journalist (whom I invited to respond publicly), and a more supportive blog post from another professional journalist. That’s all.
Even the message board discussion was fairly muted. Maybe the good readers here are just too polite to post, “Eh, Whited is off his meds again.” But, co-blogger Anne Linehan offered up the thought that such journalism is geared towards producing the newspaper’s first Pulitzer.
The Pulitzer may not be in the offing, but such work does seem to attract the attention of award givers:
The Houston Chronicle series “The Search for Eddie Peabody” by Zanto Peabody has been named the year’s best work of newspaper journalism by the Texas Institute of Letters.
The seven-part series, published in February 2004, recounted Peabody’s search for his father in civil war-torn Liberia. The Stanley Walker Award for Best Work of Newspaper Journalism Appearing in a Newspaper or Sunday Supplement was one of 14 awards presented Saturday at TIL’s annual meeting in Austin.
We’ll help out the Chronicle by actually linking to Peabody’s award-winning series.
Surely such journalism has its place — I’d never contend otherwise — but we do wish the harder news generated such excitement, especially harder local news. The Editorial LiveJournals, on the other hand, can just go away.
That’s one perspective. Please share yours with us in the forum or via email.
