Washington Post

September 9, 2003 9:12 AM

Sources for posts Sept. 8: WaPo, WaPo, WaPo, WaPo. Four out of 20 posts yesterday cited the Washington Post. Was it just that good of an issue, or are we relying too heavily on the same old media for our newsfilter posts? [more inside]
posted by me3dia to MetaFilter-related at 9:12 AM (44 comments total)

Our other standby publications seem to be, lately, The Guardian, BBC, The Globe and Mail, and good ole CNN. Are people just being lazy, or are we falling into a rut around here, news-wise?
posted by me3dia at 9:14 AM on September 9, 2003

The Post had an exclusive about what the real costs of the war would be--no one else was carrying it. For my post, it was that good of an issue.
posted by y2karl at 9:20 AM on September 9, 2003

Yep, yesterday's posts (scuse the pun) on Mefi sucked! Compared to recent times. I like the Guardian, cause it's journalism is in a class of its own, but even todays 'google' story is a) old news b) not that interesting.
posted by carfilhiot at 9:28 AM on September 9, 2003

y2karl, I'm not saying we should never use the Post, but an over-reliance on certain sources detracts from the mission of the site. If we're supposedly filtering the web for the best and most interesting links, it reflects poorly on us that we seem to find all our links in the same well-trodden places.

We've discussed this before, I know, but it seems we need a reminder every once in a while.
posted by me3dia at 9:35 AM on September 9, 2003

We need more goatse.cx stories is what we need.
posted by xmutex at 10:04 AM on September 9, 2003

"local man has gaping anus"
posted by jonson at 10:06 AM on September 9, 2003

You forgot Cory, Boing-boing accounts for many of the posts that aren't newsfilter.
posted by cedar at 10:59 AM on September 9, 2003

So now, not only must we watch for double-posts, but we must also monitor the sources of other posts.

That's way too anal.
posted by mischief at 11:03 AM on September 9, 2003

That's way too anal.

See xmutex, above.
posted by MrMoonPie at 11:09 AM on September 9, 2003

Also, "WaPo, WaPo, WaPo, WaPo" sounds suspiciously like quonsar's masturbation sound effect. Okay, continue.
posted by jonson at 11:12 AM on September 9, 2003

How do you know that?
posted by timeistight at 11:15 AM on September 9, 2003

He has a good memory. So do I. What I don't have is the time or the will to try and dig it out of quonsar's massive pile of posts for you. You'll have to trust us on this one.
posted by soyjoy at 11:25 AM on September 9, 2003

timeistight: I see two possibilities. Either jonson saw it somewhere, or there's some newfangled self-double-dating I haven't heard of yet.
posted by trondant at 11:27 AM on September 9, 2003

I'm not sure why citing the BBC makes someone lazy, but I think often a newsfilter-y post is part "look what happened" and part "look what everyone's seeing in the mass media today." I love it when people surface exceptional stories from small news sources, but I think the mass media also merits discussion at times (all newsfilter FPP caveats apply, of course).
posted by scarabic at 11:33 AM on September 9, 2003

Oops. trondant, you made it look so easy, and me so lazy. (Me So Lazy!)

Can I redeem myself by positing that WaPo might be quonsar's sound-effect reaction to this?
posted by soyjoy at 11:34 AM on September 9, 2003

My post, while it stemmed from a WaPo article, was not, strictly speaking, a "newsfilter" post at all. Was it the greatest post in the history of MetaFilter, no, but at least it wasn't a giant poo-flinging argument either.

I could have reversed a couple of links and used the other "General Tso" link as the primary one for the FPP, if that would assuage your offended sensibilities and the substance of the thing would have been identical.

Get over it.
posted by briank at 11:53 AM on September 9, 2003

One of my two ever posts used WashPost as a main source. Suddenly, I feel dirty.

Seriously, though. Current events, newsfilter type posts suck. It doesn't matter if they come from the same sources all the time, or if you go and find an article on current events from the Smallville Post-Dispatch, it's still going to suck in the same way. In fact, the Post-Dispatch is probably pulling all of their non-local stories straight off Reuters, while WashPost et al still occasionally engage in actual journalism, so smaller sources are going to suck even worse.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:59 AM on September 9, 2003

Personally, soyjoy, I'd be more worried about the fact that once Google gets a hold of this thread, searches for the phrase "quonsar's massive pile" will actually return a result.

Oh, and that teletubby has a big ole butt! Mmm mmm.
posted by trondant at 12:09 PM on September 9, 2003

Oh. I thought maybe IRC had an audio option.
posted by timeistight at 12:12 PM on September 9, 2003

briank, you haven't offended my sensibilities. I wasn't attacking those specific posts, just using them as an example of a perceived tightening of the circle we MeFites seem to be drawing our posts from.

Yeah, newsfilter sucks, but we also seem to get a ton of stuff pulled from BoingBoing (as cedar mentioned) Bifurcated Rivets, b3ta -- hell, blogdex... We've got a lot of pre-filtering going on, and a decrease in home-grown goodness.

I mean, it's great that people are grabbing the best from those places, but if we're mostly reading the same sites we aren't much of a filter or even a source for good links.

It should be the other way around, in my opinion -- BoingBoing and b3ta and WaPo should be getting posts and stories from us. We should be the ones on the front lines of
posted by me3dia at 12:16 PM on September 9, 2003

...er, link-finding. (not sure why that cut off.)

We should be a primary source, not a second-line stringer.
posted by me3dia at 12:18 PM on September 9, 2003

so many people are so defensive about their posts. I hope you're satisfied, me3dia.
posted by crunchland at 12:19 PM on September 9, 2003

Media, Blogs, whatever the source, a change has come to MetaFilter, and we can't be so expected to be cutting-edge anymore. But don't take my word for it. (Matt makes a pretty good observation, in my opinion.)
posted by Wulfgar! at 12:54 PM on September 9, 2003

Good papers run good features, which is why, I think, good papers show up a lot in our posts. Whereas AP or Reuters news can come from anywhere.
posted by mcwetboy at 1:22 PM on September 9, 2003

Meditations on Goatse (NSFW.)
posted by homunculus at 1:57 PM on September 9, 2003

I really hate the contraction "WaPo."

That is all. Thank you.
posted by NortonDC at 2:23 PM on September 9, 2003

I always thought "whappa whappa whappa" was quonsar slapping someone (like Moe smacking Curley). I never got the sexual connotation.

Maybe there *was* a homoerotic subtext to the Three Stooges. I must ask 111.
posted by timeistight at 2:38 PM on September 9, 2003

Seems like a catch-22, there are only so many reliable major newspapers on the web vs. complaints that "this is an indy-media article! This cannot be trusted"

When it comes to politics and news it seems to be one or the other. The rest of the news posts are just AP/Reuters text wrapped in different HTML.
posted by skallas at 2:52 PM on September 9, 2003

and of course we couldn't be expected to Stop Posting News Links.
posted by timeistight at 3:01 PM on September 9, 2003

I must ask 111.

A dixie cup of Cisco Red for you, sir.
posted by dhoyt at 3:09 PM on September 9, 2003

Cheers!
posted by timeistight at 3:11 PM on September 9, 2003

At the Minnesota MeFi meetup last week, I was surprised to hear "goatse.cx" pronounced as "Goat See" by mrbula. It's weird to hear things that you never ever hear pronounced (like "Metafilter").

No, this doesn't have anything to do with anything.
posted by norm at 3:17 PM on September 9, 2003

*clinks highball glass with timeistight*
posted by dhoyt at 3:18 PM on September 9, 2003

and we can't be so expected to be cutting-edge anymore. But don't take my word for it. (Matt makes a pretty good observation, in my opinion.)

Noticed; lost cutting edge recently, Matt posted his Possibly the most boring interview ever. Pointing out, it was posted August 29, 2003 on Meta-Filter's side blog, yet originally could be found July 22, 2003. All that time, it was not found by another member first.
posted by thomcatspike at 3:46 PM on September 9, 2003

note to self: google "Matt Haughey" hourly.
posted by crunchland at 5:22 PM on September 9, 2003

Can I redeem myself by positing that WaPo might be quonsar's sound-effect reaction to this?

po po po po po!
po po po po po!
posted by quonsar at 5:49 PM on September 9, 2003

How do you do this linking thing you speak of?
posted by MAYORBOB at 6:20 PM on September 9, 2003

WashgtonPostFilter?
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 6:22 PM on September 9, 2003

It's lacking in MeFi's many fine features, but you can go through Metrolike (which I found via Graham; I hope I haven't missed mention of it elsewhere) and see the MeFi front page as it would be if all the posts with links to major online news outlets were zapped.
posted by snarkout at 8:03 PM on September 9, 2003

Why not call it Com.post?
posted by Dagobert at 12:37 AM on September 10, 2003

can I just add to this by saying the standard of MeTa is really going downhill... last time i checked almost all of the links here were to some site called MetaFilter. We need more variation...
posted by twine42 at 1:31 AM on September 10, 2003

I think the reason so many people post WaPo is because that's where Drudge sends them. Practically everything I see on Drudge I eventually see on MeFi.
posted by vito90 at 12:34 PM on September 10, 2003

For the permanent record, Wapo Wapo Wapo.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:57 PM on September 10, 2003

Sigh. If nothing else, at least I can feel responsible for someone labeling a link as coming from WaPo.
posted by me3dia at 1:20 PM on September 10, 2003