Gothamist is an excellent source of news - both summaries of others' work and original work. I read it every day in addition to reading old-line print journalism (yes I receive a print version of the NY Times every day except snowpocalypse days).

I also really enjoy the excellent writing, especially the snark. JDS, in particular, often composes passages that reach high levels of hilarity.

Additionally, Gothamist has a genuine editorial stance that is not pure snark. In particular, its aggressive reporting on transportation issues, for example, fills a serious gap in the mainline media. The trolls may not realize this, but there are very few city-wide media sources that actually report on transportation.

The fact that Gothamist is pro-bicycle is something else I endorse. Whatever the troglodytes say, the US and NYC in particular, are automobile crazy. The fact that a significant media source has an editorial policy that allows, if not promotes, actually interrogation of our reliance on automobiles is politically meaningful.

Gothamist deserves a lot of credit for this sort of thing.

As far as the angsty cries of these baby boomers at the Voice go: cry me a river, you wankers. Mainstream media has been ignoring progressive journalism since either existed. Celebrities dominated the news back then too! I, for one, am glad to see these whining baby boomers fade away. There are plenty of hungry, non-whining young journalists ready to take their spots in a variety of different venues (like, e..g, pro-publica).

Anyway, keep it up Gothamist. You guys do an excellent job. (And no I've never met a single one of the people who work there.)

hey! wayne and tom should create a slimmed down website of their own where they report all the scandals no one else will, with a bit of advertising and they keep all the $!

i'd read that every week. more than I read gothamist!

to be fair, though I love much of robbin's work, he's written some total garbage.

go back and look at his column hailing bloomtard for the Mosque.

That's not journalism. that's ignorant hagiographizing.

robbins didn't even check any facts. he just trusted that a politician would never lie. and then raved like a childish groupie.

other real journalists showed that bloomberg lp memos were shooting to double their terminal leasing in dubai etc, and real journalists know that the only part of bloomberg lp that turns a profit is the terminals. the company just announced this again last week.

robbins should apologize for his part in covering up a giant scandal by the mayor.

i had a bad classical piano teacher once. i must have been 8 or 9. and boy did she suck shit. but she kept on telling me, "a real pianist doesn't do that, so don't do this. don't do that. this is the only way, blah blah blah... stop it!" eventually i'd completely lost my interest and it took me years to like playing the piano again. i play frequently now. i really like playing the piano.

and looking back as a 32 year old, did she not only suck as a teacher, but she sucked as a pianist. all she did was teaching because she herself didn't become successful. no one knew who she was, and i doubt that she even teaches now. thinking back, i even think she really hated teaching; she only did it for the money.

having a good outlook is important. and so is appraising one another. the more one criticizes another, the deeper the person criticizing digs, while trying to bring down others with him. it's funny a commenter mentions having "thin skin"; it reminds me of a friend who started doing yoga not too long ago and weirdly enough, he's also writing better -- he says that he's not getting the same bodily responses which he used to get, such as the nervousness that he used to feel around his stomach area.

hah, and you have just wasted your time reading this shit because i'm a nobody.

...or maybe you didn't. everyone can learn something good from even some trivial shit such as this non-writing material bullshit.

HA! I'm a Robbins fan of course, but as a journalist who has been forced to choose between writing for free (or next to nothing) versus not writing at all, I'd love to know where Tom thinks the money to pay for six-figure salaries is going to come from. My last newspaper job was down to rolling furloughs and cutting back on pens, paper and office supplies to save money. Maybe the celeb-status journos can demand a big paycheck, but the only people in the field who think six-figure salaries are a realistic goal are the ones who have been binging on Four Loko for trend story pieces. I hear this a lot from the older generation of journos: "your work is valuable, so you should hold out for money." I agree with that entire statement, but there's no money to wait for because no one has a reliable revenue model. So my choice is between writing for free or not writing at all, I choose writing.

are you crazy? did Tony Ortega and New Times' top goons take a PAY CUT because of the "recession"?

no. everyone knew when New Times bought the Voice what they intended to do and every prediction came true. now. every week they're giving cultural picks to KNICKS GAMES at Madison Sq Garden and other events at all the big arenas.

that was new times intent all along. their profit margin has never been larger than today. you fire all the old timers and hire newbies for 1/10th the pay. cut their benefits out too. you mix editorial with advertising departments to get more ads and scratch each others kickbacks.

didn't you see this are the same slimey stunts bloomtard is using?

he wants to be able to lay off all the experienced teachers to hire newbies because the only thing the mayor cares about is money. putting more into his pocket and his pals like Cathie Black.

" But now everyone is turning their back on the big stories and talking about the trivial [stories] and what goes on in media and this and that. Case in point: Look [at] how many people are writing about two old-timers leaving the Voice, compared to how many were actually writing about the muck that we were raking!."

I'd have to agree with this point.

It's much easier to report on trivial stuff because it's easier to comprehend. The complicated stuff, which usually is the most important stuff, just doesn't get covered.

Case in point: what's your position on regulating derivatives? Which gets a "huh?"

My position is that we need strong regulation of any financial company trading in derivatives- when Warren Buffett (who owned a good chunk of Goldman Sachs) says they're "financial weapons of mass destruction" that's probably not something that should just be allowed to run unfettered.

But that's not really local news, is it? I mean, Gothamist has done plenty of stories on the rapaciousness of Wall Street banks- but Washington political process stories are a little far afield for us. We'll probably cover it when the regulators sort out exactly what's going to happen with the new rules- and it starts to get clearer what the effects on local banks will be. -Jake

Well what is Gothamist doing about electoral reform both in NYC and the USA?

You've already "moved on" from Bush V Gore and the supercorruption of the ELectoral College of political hacks. You're now writing about SCALIA'S OPINION OF PIZZA.

And does Gothamist truly believe the mayor and city council should be able to change any laws they want any time to enrich themselves, including simply overriding voter referendums?

Hey, I enjoy Gothamist, but it's b/c you're the Sarah Palin of blogs: fun.

I'd like you even more if you had more substance.

You could quadruple your readership if you wrote stories that no one else would touch.

You'd be surprised how many NYorkers want to read about bloombucks scandals, city council crimes, big biz crimes, and so on.

From an economic point of view, I don't think this is a situation where stronger unions would help. And I say that coming from a very pro-union family, and as a life-long Democrat. Stronger unions help when management is exploiting the workers- either by treating them badly (ie. dangerous working conditions) or unfairly claiming too much profit (at the expense of labor.)

But here, it's the revenue that's vanishing- it's not the split that has changed. Forming stronger unions might temporarily keep salaries and benefits higher than they would be otherwise- but the vanishing revenue would just force the newspapers to fire more people. Sure, there are situations where management is taking too much money (for instance, when Sulzberger got paid millions last year at the Times)- but it doesn't sound like Tony Ortega or the management of the Voice are getting paid like that.

One thing that would help is radically lowering the cost structure at the paper- moving the office to cheaper space in Brooklyn (like Gothamist did two years ago!), finding a way to print cheaper or eliminate the print publication in favor of the website, reducing management overhead at the corporate parent, etc. -Jake

did you not see Tony Ortega say they were coming off a "GREAT YEAR"?

it's like when bloomtard says the city is tight on cash and then spends $10 million to move the washington sq fountain over 16 feet.

and how much debt did New Times take on when they bought the Voice

you can't act like this was a death by natural causes!

most mergers are money losers from the get-go, by stupid men in suits who have no grasp of reality.

I think Tony kind of has to say how well they're doing- he's the editor-in-chief. But I don't think you fire your best reporter for budget reasons if you're doing that well- that's just common sense.

I disagree. 1, wayne rarely wrote articles b/c he spent so much time researching them. almost no voice customer will notice him gone, and it's a free rag so people will continue to pick it up which his ALL they care about: circulation to scam advertisers. 2, I've never seen a bizman with common sense in my life. (New coke. Leno vs Conan. the new myspace. Time/Warner , and a zillion others) --- bizman care only about robbing their customers. shortsightedness is the RULE in all business, despite the hype and myths.

Nothing clouds thinking like GREED does.

The biggest hole reporters are digging themselves into this day and age is working for nothing or close to nothing.

well... y'know, the ever-increasing lack of self-esteem... and on top of that there're faceless demonoids who do nothing more than to occasionally spew their filth at reporters ("your writing sucks!") thanks to the days of anonymous commenting.

but yeah, every writer should learn to appraise their own work highly. it's a weird world we live in.

and snark is winning the day. Don't get me wrong; there's lots of good stuff on the blogs. But a lot of it is not journalism.

I see Tom Robbins is familiar with your work, John.

Ha. It's true that while I have committed journalism on Gothamist, much of what I do here is simply "blogging." There is a lot of this "blogging" out there; you'll find it on the Village Voice website, and pretty much every major news site these days has a blog, or several blogs. Blogging assimilates the work of traditionally "objective" journalism, aggregates news from diverse sources, and adds context, editorial perspective, a personal tone, and sometimes -- SOMETIMES -- even moves the story forward. People seem to enjoy consuming their news this way! In fact, you're familiar enough with this very blog to make that comment.

I like you john!

at least you write about issues of substance unlike most bloggers AND "journalists"!