'I'm Not Dead ... I'm Getting Better'

Like the weary caregiver in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, TIME magazine went about the messy business of schleping 10 American newspapers to the undertaker's cart this week, only for some of those publications to begin kicking and complaining that they're not dead yet.

Editor & Publisher reports that the publisher of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, and executives at New York's Daily News are not just alive, but outraged.

The E&P blog Fitz & Jen quotes a news release put out Wednesday afternoon by Brian Tierney, one of the owners of the Daily News and The Philadephia Inquirer. In the statement, Tierney confronts not only the alleged inaccuracies of the TIME report, but says the situation proves the Blogosphere is a poor substitute for ethically bound and professionally trained newspaper reporters:

"The fact that this 'report' can get such widespread coverage is a case study in why we need to preserve institutions like The Daily News, which has reporters who actually call sources and editors who actually check facts. If we hold up this type of blog 'reporting' as journalism, God save our democracy."

Not sure how much traction Tierney's going to get making a condescending "blog" argument against TIME, which is as mainstream a publication as any newspaper. If the information was wrong, all it really proves is that everybody make mistakes.

We reported the item this week, and now that it's been questioned we're reporting that as well. If TIME responds, we'll post that too.

In the meantime, we're certainly glad to hear they're not dead yet ...

(Twitter This)

-- TJ Sullivan

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