Dear WKRN,
In response to your recent post titled The New NashvilleIsTalking, I’d like to draw your attention to one sentence on the form that the post links to, which states:
“NashvilleIsTalking (NIT) has always been about the local blogging community and always will be”
Oh, hell no. That’s not what you’re doing lately, dudes.
When Brittney resigned from NiT, I understand that it probably took you a bit by surprise. You were lucky to get Kat Coble to voluntarily pick up the slack temporarily, and I again understand that after she moved on it was probably hard to find full-time volunteers to post to the site. You were again lucky to get Newscoma and lcreekmo for a weekend, and I think a few other good ‘uns after that. I did enjoy seeing what trouble Nemesis Girl would stir up, though I don’t know how many others would agree with me there.
But now I feel like NiT is sliding down a slippery slope into total ridiculousness. It’s lost its vision, and you don’t really seem to give a damn.
So I have to ask: What the hell is going on with these William and Birdwhistell people?!
Is this honestly the best that you can do?
I know you’re probably just trying to make sure that someone is posting to the site on a regular basis, but let me suggest that if you are going to continue to allow these folks to post under the Nashville Is Talking name, at least set some guidelines for them. Not that you asked, but the No. 1 rule I would suggest is, I don’t know, maybe POST SOME INFORMATION RELEVANT TO THE COMMUNITY AND LINK TO SOME NASHVILLE BLOGS?!
I don’t know who this Birdwhistell person is, but I got an e-mail from him to join Nashtown.com. Looking at the site, it appears he likes going to clubs and taking pictures of scantily clad women around town. Great, good for him. Why the hell I’d want to join, no idea. That’s not really my bag. But thanks for the invite, dude.
The bigger question is why the hell is he guest blogging on NiT? An entire post of his was devoted to running into an ex in San Francisco and trying to hide from her by looking upward. Greaaaat, man, awesome idea. But why is this on NiT and not your personal blog?
OH–that’s right! You think NiT is your personal blog. My bad.
Now, onto the next one. For the record, I consider myself liberal and find it mildly amusing that William starts off most days posting links to random national Web sites with news about how George W. Bush is an asshat or how the GOP is fucking themselves. That’s great; glad to hear it.
Except… that’s not what this site is for, right? I thought it was a gathering place for all blogs NASHVILLE. It’s not CNN Is Talking, Fox News Is Talking, The Wall Street Journal Is Talking. (Or is it?)
If William would just spend 10-20 minutes or so looking around the Nashville blogs, I bet he’d find someone IN NASHVILLE talking about this stuff and be able to link to them instead of these national sites. I’ve seen him do it once or twice before by linking to Southern Beale, so I know he’s capable. I have faith in him! And in his pink flowery tea cups!
I can respect that times are rough and guest bloggers–presumably working for free–are hard to come by. But are these two the best you can do? Could you not find anyone who would adhere to what I, and I’m sure other locals, thought the site’s mission was: To link to Nashville-area blogs and provide a glimpse into what the community is talking about? Did you even give these two tools any guidelines? Ask them nicely? Or did you just hand them the keys and say, “Fuck it up however you’d like, boys!”?
Are you trying to alienate the community Brittney worked so hard to build? Are you trying to fail? Or does it just come naturally?
Please, for the love of whatever you deem holy, keep it relevant. And if Nashville Is Talking has become William and Birdwhistell Are Talking, the least you can do is adjust the site’s flag accordingly.
Hugs,
Megan
