Comments on: Times Uber-Reporter at it Again! Wallace Dishes on the Virtual Vacation that is SL

By: Gina Fatale

Gina Fatale — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 10:15:32 +0000

try this link if its any diff idk but this is what walker sent me to my email and it works fine for me:

here ya go:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/28/travel/escapes/28virtual.html

oh and thank you walker for considering me and letting me part of this great little article

Marsellus – i’ll be seeing you later you big stud lol.

By: Walker Spaight

Walker Spaight — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 23:34:34 +0000

Firefox ftw

By: Prokofy Neva

Prokofy Neva — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 23:22:57 +0000

Sigh. Uri, I’m registered with the Times, and it’s logged in to watch breaking news often. But that link just does not go there. Whatever. While it’s true I only read this leftist blog after midnight when they refresh it, and NEVER buy the hard copy, I do know some of the journalists there and respect them, and I don’t think it’s the case the NYT doesn’t like me. But hey, maybe once the IP grabber grabs my IP on the Herald, the NY Times IP grabber can’t grab as efficiently?

By: Urizenus

Urizenus — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 23:08:27 +0000

maybe the NYT doesnt’ like you. It works for me.

By: Prokofy Neva

Prokofy Neva — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 18:57:20 +0000

Uri, you know, your whole blog sucks in that technical respect that you cannot cut and paste phrases or URLs off it. At least, I’ve never been able to — it won’t let you. You have to hunt around for the RSS feed through the sea of code to link to an article. And no, that URl for the Times won’t take you there though it is the address, maybe because you have to register to read it. So first go to http://www.nytimes.com and register for free then go to the Travel section then look for Escapes on the upper right hand navigation bar.

By: Ugh

Ugh — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 18:21:51 +0000

your url is leaving the form on the front of the site and going all wackie, can’t someone fix this error in the code??? it’s totally left the form and is going across the page!

By: Ugh

Ugh — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 18:20:45 +0000

UGH

By: Prokofy Neva

Prokofy Neva — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 18:16:39 +0000

Even though Walker’s story is from a world he lives in, it’s no more biased then if he wrote about New York while living in New York in this case. People have had this debate for years about the gonzo journalism of alternative papers like the Voice (which you can read about in this week’s 50th anniversary issue). Could you be part of the beatnik/hippie/gay liberation/Vietnam protester scene and still report accurately and fairly? Veteran reporter Nat Hentoff tells an interesting story, calling this style of reporting “personal journalism” at http://www.villagevoice.com/specials/0543,50thehent,69254,31.html
“One morning, I got a call from a young reporter, one of our best, Don McNeill, who was covering an anti-war demonstration at Grand Central Terminal that the police tried to break up by force, including smashing heads. Our reporter, who had been clubbed, said hurriedly to me on the phone, ‘Should I put in the story that I’ve got blood on my shirt, or is that putting myself too much into the story?’

‘That’s your lead,’ I told him. I doubt that anyone on the New York Times news desk ever got such a call from a reporter in the field.”

So it *is* a legitimate brand of journalism, but Walker Spaight doesn’t even really practice that sort of community journalism — after all, we had to get it from the Herald that Diamond is a PostSix Grlll and hear about Gina and her club. That’s because Walker just kinda travels around observing, and doesn’t get REALLY involved in the world, it seems to me. And in fact, he’s followed in the footsteps of the very conventional media coverage of SL by having the de rigeur nod to Midnight City, home of Aimee’s undies, of course, featured in the picture (not even especially an exotic travel destination, geez); and giving props to FairChang’s island and boats — though many not know that Walker himself constructed upon my request a really amazing submersible called a “bathysphere” (ask for a ride some time though I never learned how to pilot the thing).

So, he doesn’t write for the Times about *his own* adventures per se but just about the standard list of people that mainstream journalists write about.

To give him credit, he did go past the well-trod path of the Linden PR people to cover Neo-Realms Fishing in Alston (though this is now probably on the new approved PR list, now that *something* has to replace the ubiquitous Cubey Terra) — and Monmarte, the artist’s colony. I think it’s a pretty fair taste of SL as an exotic destination.

If anything, in this interview, Philip seems a bit nonplussed at having to think of his brainchild appearing as a virtual travel destination where people have fun (ermmm….a game…would that be?) instead of being earnestly described as a “monetarized socializing platform”.

Walker also fell for that six-figure stuff like all journalists. I wonder when SOMEBODY, if not Walker or Ted Castronova (both of them seem to have too much a stake now in this story being true) will ever really investigate these claims.

By: Walker Spaight

Walker Spaight — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 17:40:20 +0000

Marsellus: Yes, it's usually the financial involvement that is the problem. That's why I originally said, "If I was a Linden" (I'd Linden in the morning...), i.e., if I was getting paid by anyone to be in SL then it would be a problem. And yeah man, I write gaming stories all the time. Well, not *all* the time, but regularly, anyway. As you would know if you read Walkering.com. Sheesh, where ya been? Here's the first story about a gamer I ever wrote, I think. No, actually, it was the second. Anyway, 5 years ago.

By: Cocoanut

Cocoanut — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 15:19:18 +0000

I love that it was in the travel section!

coco