Guilty as charged.
Huan took on the burning issue of whether Real Change vendors are bilking the public by not always being pathetic and needy enough for his taste. And he, being some dumb-ass journalist who's thought about it for an hour or two, thinks a turf system that rewards and creates success for vendors who work hard is too capitalistic a path for an organization that's supposed to be helping people.
The Weekly found a mildly disgruntled vendor who compared our incentive system to "tax breaks for the rich," and got our star vendor,
Ed McClain, who earns every fucking penny he makes, to say he doesn't feel guilty about taking people's money.Bravo, Mr. Hsu, for uncovering the greatest injustice of our age.
Given that every internal document about Real Change that exists is open to public inspection at realchange.wikispaces.com, he could have dug into our policies and the thinking behind them in a more nuanced and interesting way, but that would have lacked the drama and conflict he was looking for.
The article gives both sides, and is therefore "balanced." But I don't think this article will be winning any awards for the Weekly.
For that to happen, you have to write about things that matter.
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5 comments:
The article was fine.
let's face it, had The Stranger written a piece, It would have been a lot worse. You would have had no research, just some judgemental "reporter" from the Capitol ill Gazzette would have shown up and wrote whatever slant they were going after.
Then, rumors of a boycott of your product would have been mentioned in the article. Talk to the owners of Cafe Septieme about that one.
Bottom line, The Seattle weekly wrote a fair piece. It looks like the new Management at SW has given you some good exposure.
Tim, did you read the same article I did?
I can understand your anxiety about having the inner workings of your organization aired in public. But your organization is actually pretty interesting to read about, and if anything, the article was a testament to the success of Real Change by enabling them to pay their own rent rather than putting them on a homelessness treadmill.
This was good publicity. Don't undermine it with your paranoia.
P.S. The Stranger is the weekly that publishes advocacy journalism, in which there must always be a bad guy. The Weekly is the one that does regular old journalism, in which articles attempt to interest and inform the reader with interviews and research. I think you are confusing the two.
BEST QUOTE: "It's not like the Seattle Weekly would tell one of its reporters to leave because he's too good," says Garcia. "People will move on when they're ready to move on."
No, they won't tell their reporters to leave, they'll just create a hostile environment for them. NewTimes/VVM/SeattleWeekly will, however, tell their editors to leave, as they effectively did to Berger, Taylor and Howland last year.
GROW UP.
What do you think of this guy then?
http://joshxiong.com/?p=60
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