Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Invasion of the "Carpet Bloggers"

Yesterday I became aware of a group out of Orange County, California that has decided that they will become the true "citizen journalists" (read bloggers) for New Orleans - not in her recovery - but in investigating the "truth" behind the wild allegations and myths that have surrounded this city since the storm.

They have stated that they will bring to light the horrible truth behind the FEMA concentration camps that are running throughout this state. Evil places where church services must be held in secret inside FEMA trailers and where these displaced New Orleanians have been forced to create an underground railroad for gasoline and baby formula.

I'm sorry, but these people want to make me puke and as such, I won't even give out their link.

What's even more outrageous is that this is what their own website states:
While we are seeking to find truth about what happened and what is happening in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, we realize that we are not on the ground living it. To find the true story about what is happening, we suggest you read some of the local New Orleans blogs and podcasts.
No kidding. Who would know better... people who's feet have been on the ground since before the storm? People who are native New Orleanians? Or some business blog company who primarily pays people to blog about accounting, industry verticals and business travel?

The first thing I did after hearing about these twats was to contact Maitri over at VatulBlog and ask her what her thoughts were on this and she provided me with some background on several highly respected NOLA blogger's communications with these people - basically they refused to respond to even the most basic and friendly of emails. They even declined to join this community in participating in the "Rising Tide Conference".

Anyway, Maitri put it best by calling these people "Carpet Bloggers" and it makes me sick that they are being paid to come down here and conduct so called "citizen journalism" while in reality, all they are trying to do is make money by further sensationalizing New Orleans post-K myths.

Unless, of course, they finally figure out who blew up the levees...

________________

3 Comments:

Blogger anonymous said...

You're getting some basic facts wrong here.


You make it sound like there's a unified group based in Orange County that is running Chartreuse's efforts. That's not true.

Know More Media, which does have an office in Orange County, has created NewOrleansTruth.com in order to follow Chartreuse's progress in evaluating claims in a recent email he received describing several New Orleans-area human rights violations. I'm an editor for Know More Media and am helping to maintain the blog. But while we support what Chartreuse is doing, he is the one calling the shots as far as what his volunteer reporters do there.

Next, you said, "They have stated that they will bring to light the horrible truth behind the FEMA concentration camps that are running throughout this state." Where did Know More Media, Chartreuse or anyone else say that? If anyone did, it's not true. Chartreuse is simply sending a few volunteers to his hometown area to see if what he read in the email he got is true or not.

Finally, I don't know who Maitri tried to contact, but Know More Media is more than willing to talk to Maitri. I've emailed Maitri and am waiting to hear back. We want to hear from New Orleans-area bloggers and work with them to make NewOrleansTruth.com a good addition to - not a replacement for - all that they have published so far.

I don't think you should call anyone bad names, especially not without first talking to them to verify if the things you've heard about them are true.

I'm interested in what you have to say and will be following your blog as well. Please don't take this the wrong way. I'm just saying that I think you should have checked the facts better before publishing this post. Hopefully we can come to better mutual understanding. If I'm reporting anything wrong, I want to know about it.

Time will tell if we at Know More Media deserve the names you called us.

7:21 PM, August 15, 2006  
Blogger TAG said...

Read my next post Easton...

8:45 PM, August 15, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

T,

The term "carpetblogger" was coined by a friend of Ray's and I've been using it ever since.

We shouldn't have to come to you, Easton. You have to come to us, you have to seek out even people without blogs who have been living this since August of last year all over the country.

A better service you can do is to blog about New Orleanians displaced to your part of the country and give them a voice.

The last thing: We'd talk to you and we do - but we get the most minimal and vague responses back.

New Orleans is not a meal ticket, and we won't let her become one.

9:48 AM, August 16, 2006  

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