behind the news

Bloggers Doubt TVNewser’s Abilities as Trade Columnist

The New York Times prints a gushy profile of Brian Stelter, and bloggers respond to his success with admiration and jealousy.
November 21, 2006

On Monday, the New York Times‘ Julie Bosman printed a gushy profile of the unassuming editor of the blog TVNewser, “a seven-day-a-week, almost 24-hour-a-day newsfeed of gossip, anonymous tips, newspaper article links and program ratings.” The piece ran on page A1 of the Times, offering up seemingly endless praise to the “baby-faced 21-year-old at Towson University” who has captured the respect of some of the most powerful players in television news.

Today, bloggers are responding to Brian Stelter’s success with admiration and jealousy, and questioning the Web savviness of network executives.

“I don’t normally like to toot another man’s horn (for so many, many reasons),” writes ThePeel at Speak Easy, “but a NY Times story today about the kid who writes TVNewser.com was both well-written and insightful. I feel like a nearly 24-year-old loser …”

“The best ideas come from the people willing to execute them, not from committees,” writes a jaded Steve Gilliard at the News Blog. “Let him try to get a real job in media and the knives would come out. Sure, they’ll hire him to run his site, but to make him a TV trade columnist, never happen.”

Jon Husband at Thermo[SAT] agrees: “If he were to become a trade columnist, the quality and usefulness of his running stream of observation, anecdote, tips, gossip and other elements of ‘news’ would not have the same impact … it would be force-fitted into whatever is the accepted (and acceptable) practices of trade columnists.”

For some, it was difficult to ignore the volume and breadth of praise that was showered on the young blogger in the Times piece. Drawing up this list of choice quotes, Jossip accuses the industry of “sucking up to TV gossip’s doorman”:

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  • “People from entry level to high and mighty check in on it.” — NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams
  • “The whole industry pays attention to his blog.” — Jeffrey W. Schneider, ABC News senior VP
  • “He was quite a celebrity.” — Jeremy Gaines, MSNBC spokesman
  • “The biggest TV executives, the men and women who run the top networks, look at this kid’s Web site all the time.” — Joe Scarborough, MSNBC host
  • “He seems to be a trustworthy guy, a trustworthy source of information.” — Jeff Greenfield, CNN commentator

Criticism of the TV news industry didn’t end there, though. Referring to Schneider’s quote, “It would not surprise me if I refreshed my browser 30 to 40 times a day,” Terry Heaton of Pomo Blog responds: “Obviously, Mr. Schneider has NEVER HEARD OF RSS and is living in ancient Web history! I mean, who refreshes a browser anymore? Hello! I find it amazing how many mainstream media people run from RSS and use the excuse ‘nobody knows what it is.'”

Mark Boyer was a CJR intern.