A final response, and then I’m done.
Your defensiveness-without-addressing-the-matter is not helping your case, though. If you actually articulated why the site uses that tone, when you plan to break some actual news, etc., that would be useful and worth responding to. Unless you want me to point out here that I gave you your first job as media reporter, which has no bearing on my criticism of your employer, I’m not sure what the point of your post was.
Elizabeth. Your criticism has been packaged in the whole Young Manhattanite thing, which as you know has been fairly personal and often quite nasty. As I have said repeatedly, in emails to YM people that you’ve been included on, and to other critics - I’m happy to respond on the merits. But, you don’t like the tone? So fine, you don’t like the tone. I’m sure you heard a lot of that back when you were at Gawker, and I’m equally sure you didn’t just drop everything to make sure the complainers were indulged. I listen to critics and then I make a judgment about what action to take. But you’ve given me no reason why I should enter into a dialogue with you. I certainly would have under more collegial circumstances - when have you ever experienced otherwise from me? - but not when it comes on the heels of barbs, jibes and snide remarks. On a site where people post without bylines. I’ll pass, thanks.
You don’t have to like the site or its content. I do and I’m proud of it, and proud of my colleagues. Is it perfect? No. Will it get better? Yup, and it is every day. We’ve been live for 2 weeks - during which you couldn’t count the sniping comments on YM on both hands (and probably feet, too). So - my energy is clearly best focused elsewhere.
As for pointing out that you gave me my first job in media, like I said, the usual disclaimer applies - the usual disclaimer being, you gave my my first job in media. I’ve hardly been stingy with giving you credit for that. (You also taught me about links, so I would have just assumed that you’d notice this one.) And regarding Liebling - 2003 called, it wants its pretentious blogger takedown reference back. (Liebling? Really?) That said, Liebling is certainly someone to emulate. But I think you and I are about equal on reporting from foreign battlegrounds. New York battlegrounds, while delightful, aren’t quite the same.
