Extra, Extra

The Times can create any number of website subentities to satisfy different demographics while keeping the old Gray Lady nice n' musty in print. It's a corporation in a multichannel universe. Time for those schlubs to behave like it. Conversely, Gothamist can always come up with something different for these gravitas-starved readers and stick it like a loose doorknob on the "Istiverse" stack.

I'd probably avoid accusing anyone on the panel of "bitching" if they feel it's worth their time to criticize your attitude or suggest that you run a tighter ship, Jake.

The point here is that the panel isn't about Gothamist- you really think these executives care about what we're doing down here? Get real- they're worried about the fact that they're not connecting with our 20-40 demo, and they're quickly running out of cash. They already had to lay off like 10 people in Metro last month.

Do you have anything to say to help them out? Because I don't think listing all the reasons Gothamist sucks is going to do much for them!

I guess the real answer is "be irresponsible, irreverent, pander to latent racism, and have no overhead" but personally I'd hate to see the Times do that.

I don't think there's much anyone can do until the system collapses and people become accustomed to having to pay for content again.

Or what NannyState suggests, but that's just patching holes in a ship that's gonna sink anyway.

In my opinion, the only future the NYT has is to increase their focus on producing content to compete with AP, Reuters, etc. because the profit in a world where blogs replace local papers is going to be in charging people like you for quoting their coverage. Also, you may want to figure out a contingency plan for photos because grabbing stuff off Google image search is going to become much more litigious in the future as content--ANY content--becomes more and more precious to its original owner.

But I agree with you that just as online media outlets such as AOL continue to let their corporate hubris interfere with how to make news cool for Gen Y (Asylum.com for example), the big papers are also unlikely to ever "get it." While you guys may have trouble with typos, these dusty old giants have too many AP/Chicago-style handbook Nazis limiting the expressiveness of their staff. (Meetings over the proper use of the serial comma, etc.) News writing needs to change and that, in my opinion, is what most of the dinosaurs don't want to hear.

I'm hearing a lot of bitching about Gothamist and our parasitic, immature, self-centered, typo-prone, not-respecting-the-elders ways, but I've heard all that before a bunch of times and it's not going to help me on this panel.

What David asked, quite specifically, is how The Times is doing in Metro coverage with people our age. And I've yet to hear anything from any of you about how they are doing Metro well, or can continue even to support their current output with the collapse in their revenues. And they're not doing well with people our age- that's a fact. I've seen the demographics and they're not pretty.

My answer is straightforward, even if you disagree: either they can produce less stories or act more like Gothamist (curate more, report less, operate on a lower cost basis). Does anyone here have another, more helpful suggestion for them? B/c if not, I think it's time to move on to bitching on a new thread.

Well, another way that the Times is different from almost every other metro source I can think of (Gothamist, New York Mag, DN/Post) is in tone and taste level. Even in their web content they don't run things that will offend the adults. Whereas Goth has its snark and irresponsibility and can run a story about a rat stuck in the sidewalk - indeed, the rat stuck in the sidewalk is like a coup for Gothamist.

You can call that boring or unimaginative, but I don't really want the Times to get more puerile and obnoxious. I guess I'd get excited if they just went all Wayne Barrett and bit the hand that feeds them more.

So your advice is for them to keep doing the same thing and go out of business slowly as their revenues run dry? How does that help anyone?

No, my advice was in that last sentence. Make Bloomberg as resentful of the Times as John McCain is, by digging deeper and being more critical. Make administrative lethargy the new crusade, not goddamn cellphones while driving. And hound those jerks in Albany until they run at the sight of an NYT reporter - cover what they are up to every damn day with a critical slant.

Their reason for being is providing the substance that Gothamist republishes, so why not make that substance more exciting and relevant. Encouraging them to be more like Gothamist ignores both the parasitic and niche aspects of this site. They can't do what Gothamist does.

Remember without the NY Times and other newspapers Gothamist doesn't have many posts. Some of the posts are reporting on your own, but a lot of it comes from other sources.

Jake, based on your response for the panel, which is written in the tone of a spurned 10th grader, offers zero substance or provocation, and is by far the most myopic thing I've read in 2010, you're going to get your ass handed to you during the panel discussion, which I can only assume will feature intelligent adults.

But hey, keep on childishly slamming the very institutions that make your world go 'round. But as others have suggested, your should really keep your delusions in check. You are an aggregator. If there is nothing of value to aggregate, you're gone. Big media is certainly amidst a profitability problem, but I certainly don't want to live in a world that relies on the likes of Gothamist to be informed. Focus on your strengths: timeliness, good photo sections, and directing us to good sources of information in separate windows.

Don't be so chuffed, Jake. I'm no NYT fan but Gothamist is just an aggregator with a much narrower audience than you take credit for. I see local stories on my AP iPhone app that you never touch the same day/week that Gothamist is flooded with Balloon Boy crap or endless "social outrage" stories just to get the comments streaming in. Also, your "editor-in-chief" has the worst grammar of any blog of your size on the net. Hipsters and snarky white kids who came through the same posh schools you did (and were indoctrinated just as well in identity politics) may keep the faith but you're not much more than a brand. I doubt a corporation stuffed with know-it-all dinosaurs will ever take your niche but watch out for others just like you only with a bit more polish. They're out there and they will eat your lunch one of these days.

I miss the recipes Gothamist used to post. And the secret dumpling finds in Flushing! That's local news I can use.

FWIW, I don't read the Times print edition, which is a whole different story. The Times spends a LOT on printing costs, which I'm not sure is the wisest, but whatever. And the Times site updates just as blogs do, trust me on that, I check the NYT site much too often (as often as I check Gothamist). I don't mean to be the Times' stalwart defender, but I feel there's a lot of hating against them, much of it undeserved.

What you're missing is that stories on Gothamist can be continuously updated throughout the day in order to achieve accuracy where as a print newspaper has to wait. Unless you go to their own lame website. By the way Jen Carlson is the bees knees.

By the way Jen Carlson is the bees knees.

I agree! (Assuming that by "bees knees" you mean an irritating thing that sucks.)

I remember when Gothamist was real cutting edge, yo. It used to really speak to my generation's interest in stuff like graf and Banksy and street art. Now it's just pussified whining about strollers and dogs and shit.

and don't forget the coverage of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Thanks to Gothamist they were like our Dylan, our Springsteen. Now what is there? What can we believe in?

Meant to be a response to thedroog.

'editorial curation'

man, you gotta love that clever little phrase.

problem is, if everyone is editorial curating, or whatever the hell you want to call it, where does one get the original source material? and please don't say 'jen carlson,' because really, she is just, well, not good. no good, sir.

oh, and if you're idea of information worth regurgitating consists of:

' . . . billionaire rubes, the dozens of mainstream media outlets that survive (radio, tv, local papers), and the hundreds of hyperlocal neighborhood blogs that spring up like mushrooms every year, I don't think we'll ever run out of local content to pass through our curation machine'

then i truly question your conclusion. because really, crap broadcast or posted once is crap worth posting again, yeah? brilliant.

great. that's 'your.'

I can't argue your point about local news. I do read Gothamist for that, granted, and enjoy it. You do a great job in, as you say, editorial curation. However, I am in the 20-40 demographic which you reference, and read both Gothamist and the Times daily. The Times, remember, covers an international market. Do you have people in Davos? Um, have you even blogged about Davos? You can head on over to the Times and yoink one of their stories, not having to spend the money they did on the actual footwork, and oh, you know, journalism. The NYT multimedia that your staff loves? Original content from the Times. You dare make a snide remark about the Times sucking from teats?! How rich!

I'm not here for a flame war, we both have better things to do. I'm just saying you should check your vitriol.

Hey Jake. If the Times sucks so much, then stop linking to them. That is all.

I didn't say their stories suck. They're pretty good taken each by itself. But taken together, they just don't do a good job telling me what's important in New York each day.

And as the Times progressively goes broke (from the collapse of their print news monopoly, not from anything we're doing) that's only going to get worse. Luckily, there are plenty of mainstream media hosts for us blog parasites!

You make some great points Jake. The Times is a failed business model that did not have any foresight when making business decisions. There are also plenty of news and information sources besides the Times to pull. Having said that though I thought there was a hint of sour grapes about not being bought by the Times earlier?? Not to mention a sprinkle of arrogance throughout.

"business decisions"

That frightens me. I think it's pretty obvious where a lot of the page views on Gothamist (or other blogs) are coming from, and it's equally obvious that whoever is picking (and writing) the stories here is very aware of that. Hence, the annoying pageview-grab photo galleries (which will inevitably have at least one shot of an underwear-clad young woman) and the preference for stories and blurbs that will create a firestorm in the comments (eg, the high amount of racially-charged (always including "he was a good kid") or pet (the always delightful felix extravaganzas) stories). Yes, of course, catering to our baser inclinations is going to provide plenty of pageviews/revenue, especially when combined with what I can imagine is a pretty low overhead (I'm assuming everything done on Gothamist can be done in front of a computer; whatever "original reporting" has been done here I'm as-to-yet completely oblivious to, and certainly wouldn't trust).

Gothamist does what it does well - light news, dredging through shitholes like the Post to bring interesting stuff to light, and oh-shit-it-just-happened stuff that can't be reported in a timely fashion with any semblance of accountability by more substantial news sources - but I hate to think of it as a competitor to something like the Times. They are pretty much fucked, but I'm pretty sure if the decent papers fade away in the next few years we're all going to be regretting it. I'm curious to see how my generation responds - one which I'm currently inclined to see as favoring curation and criticism far above creation, but perhaps that owes more to my circles - when the content runs out. What happens when there's nobody left to do your reporting for you? Or when the tipsters get sick of seeing their name in light? I'd be surprised if there isn't some sort of blog crash in five or so years when the Establishment runs out of cash and the hobby-bloggers run out of narcissism. ("Gothamist is a website about puppies Jen Carlson saw in Williamsburg.")

Anyway, what gets me is how self-congratulatory that answer is. Gothamist is by no means exceptional on it's own. It may be amusing, it may be profitable, but by no means is it something substantial. If Gothamist were to suddenly go under, we'd all drift somewhere else and have basically the same thing with a different name and better photo galleries and nobody would mark the difference (although I would miss JDS). The only thing that keeps me checking here is the commenters - I by and large dislike and disagree with many of them, but largely they're a of a type that is underrepresented elsewhere. Maybe they're just old. Anyway.

Anyway. Jesus Christ. "Curation Machine." Congratulations, you're the doorman at Gold Bar or some such nonsense. Making money, people think your cool. Congratulations.

Just don't start believing that you're not disposable.

Also, I say this as a disappointed lover.

Now that's how you comment.

Please take notes, Gothamist mouth-breathers. Not everything has to be ignorant, unfunny, or screeching.

Gothamist is a pimple on the ass of the NY Times. It's fun and I spend too much time reading and commenting here, but it is in now way at all a competitor or peer to the Times.

Also, since you appear to paying at least some attention to this post, make one of the interns proof!

*you're cool.

Regarding the sour grapes— I think I can speak for all the New York blogs and say we're glad we didn't get bought five years ago. Acquisitions are usually priced on yearly revenue or profit, and in the case of these businesses, that's based (in part) off traffic. Just take a look at the growth in Gothamist's traffic stats, and you'll see what I mean. If we'd sold back then, before we had any real traffic or ad sales, we would've missed a big opportunity. Not to mention a lot of fun.

from your prepared remarks: "Each day in NYC, Gothamist produces 50+ posts, drawn from hundreds of local sources and a dash of our own reporting.(sic)"

after the ethically challenged photo you posted today of a local house fire victim, i'm not sure i want any real reporting decisions left up to your team. i hope somebody brings it up at the panel discussion on thursday so you can talk about it.

The NYT, with its "slavish devotion to originality" hasn't had an original idea in years, um, like "curating" other people's original ideas. WTF??? Too bad they're "sucking on the teat of some old rich guy" when we would have sucked on theirs "for a song". Oh my oh my. Perspective-challenged hipsters run amok...

I bear my soul to you, and that's the best sarcasm you have? Someone, please, step up here!

Did you mean "bare my sole" . Did you step in something.? Don't you wish Ms. Chung was back?

You can keep your soul. Just give us a fact checker and a copy editor and that will be more than enough.

No deal! Typos and gross distortions of truth are part of the blogger code.

That is a good-looking duck...