Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Blog Stories 2008: #10-The Firing of Ken Edelstein


The subhead here should be Crazy Cracks The Creative Loafing.

The story began last December with the first round of layoffs at the venerable alt-weekly and ended this November with the firing of long time editor Ken Edelstein.

The departure was noted by all, for whether you considered him a friend, an enemy or a frenemy, everyone in the community understood Ken was one of the straws that stirred the drink.

He, via his publication, was one of the first in traditional media to build bridges between the old and new world.

When the AJC turned up its nose at SoCon and Podcamp, he sent reporters to participate. When AJC Editor Julia Wallace was proclaiming her publication was going to show us how it's done, Ken was, in his own combative and frankly irritating manner, talking to us about what it all means and how he could make his own world better. And God help us all, he did the one thing so many in his field fear - he started a blog and let the fertile minds of Wheatley, Freeman, Shalhoup, Henry and Nouaree run wild.

If you like him, you worry about the future of Creative Loafing and its relationship with the community. If you loathe him, well, you won't have Edelstien to kick around anymore. At least for now. After all, New Years bring new beginnings.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If Ken Edelstein was some kinda new media visionary then I'm Arianna Huffington. But Ken was/is no media visionary. And I remain merely Arianna's bitch. Pity.

That said, Ken walking out on that media-ADD whack-job Ben Eason sure gave me a moment to pause for something resembling respect... and downright glee. I'm sure I'll get over that too.

griftdrift said...

Read again Spacey. I never called him a visionary. Just noticed he recognized the new world creeping up faster than his peers.

thomaspatrickwheatley said...

Well put, Grift. Damn good job.

Anonymous said...

I doubt Sarah Palin ever said the actual non-word "maverick-y" either. Doesn't stop anyone from associating her with it.