Killian at the free Daughtry concert in downtown GSO, along with 20,000 or so of his closest friends.

I wonder what the morbidly obese man with clip-on suspenders was crying about. Too many pantyless girls? Not enough?

N&R coverage, with link to some fine pics, here.

Comments

[Joe Killian]

Mostly he was crying because the police were asking him to leave the festival area because he was too drunk.

For an open air festival where they're selling beer.

Along a street lined with bars.

This happened to a number of people.

When I'm this drunk I get really, really mellow. Not so much with these folks.

This particular guy sat on the curb and, like a little boy, cried out between sobs:

"I ain't done nothin'! I ain't! Ya'll need to just...just...I ain't done nothin'!"

[ben holder]

That is great reporting! This is what journalism is all about!

[sean coon]

ah, he speaks...

[benholder]

Sean,

You couldnt do anything to make any kind of a difference...u wish groups like the gtrc would have come to you for help lie they did me...u wish bellamy would call u and ask you things ...but nobody does...because u dont know shit...u cant do shit...u r a fucking bitch....u have no contacts...street cred...or balls...u have a computer...you and your brother play nov 3 1979 in your pj's and dream baout being able to make a difference...but u cant...cuz u r a bithc...just like your best friend killian........i dont read u..does anyone...do u know how boring your lil blog world would be if i quit??? if u quit...would anyone even notice?

[Ed Cone]

So, yeah, anyway, good writeup of the show, Joe.

[Joe Killian]

Thanks, Ed.

Am working on something longer and better over coffee. Will post later today.

[sean coon]

waaaaaah! (sorry for the thread jack, fellas)

[ben holder]

Sean,

fuck off

[Ed Cone]

Sean and Ben: we got it already. Stop, please.

[benholder]

Ed,

Fuck off

[Ed Cone]

Should I fuck off before or after I address the issues about Ahearn you raise in the other thread?

[benholder]

Nobody should fuck off. Sean, Joe, Clarey...I shouldnt have told you to fuck off. Ed, i shouldnt have told you to fuck off. However, if my work sucks so bad and I am shit...why does most things I write end up being a story someplace else?

[Ed Cone]

Your work doesn't suck. Don't let the haters get you down, that was too much of a pile-on for my taste.

That said, don't blow off the very real discussion of how we work online these days -- it's important stuff, and we're all trying to figure it out.

[Joe Killian]

Ben:

Nobody's saying your work sucks. You're a blogger who occasionally takes money for being a journalist and there is (and should be) a real discussion about how we do those two things and what our responsibilities are in each role. It's something I deal with when I blog things I've written about too.

Not every question, discussion or even criticism is an attack. If you worked in a newsroom for a large daily the volume of real hate mail you'd get without earning it would blow your mind. The stuff you deserve (and we all get some of that) would sometimes hurt too. But you keep your job and do your job by not turning into a snarling monster whenever someone presses your buttons. I think I've been pretty respectful in this whole debate and even I should have held my tongue more and been more sensitive. We all know better.

[Fec Stench]

I love you, Ben. But then I'm drunk and hence love everyone. But were I not, I would still love you and Ed and Sean and Roch....

[Cara Michele]

Ben, when it comes to scoops, you're always first and you're always right. And when you're not dropping f-bombs, you're an amazing writer. Sometimes you make me laugh and sometimes you make me cry -- but you always make me read. And everybody else is reading, too, so you must me doing something right! ;)

Hug the dynamic duo for me. I'm going outside to play with a dog and a baby. :)

[benholder]

Joe,

lets be real.. You said I dont cite things and post wrong info..that means...in my world...you suck...examples pleaseof your claim of not citing and being wrong? ...The fact is I correct your paper and y'all read me way more than I read you...I do cite.y'all dont cite the stuff u get from me....and I am correct...you were wrong to say I dont...how do u not cite a video...Public docs???? etc....Joe, I also seriously doubt u get ahlf the hate mail and death threats I have gotten...ever testified against gangsters?

[Joe Killian]

Ben:

Glad to be real. But it's going to take me some space to explain what I'm trying to say honestly, in the way I want to say it. You want to mock me for that afterward, I'll swallow it. These are all my personal opinions and I'm not speaking for the company I work for or anyone else who works there.

As a blogger I think you often do great things. I've told you that personally, on the phone, when we've spoken like human beings. You and I have talked about my frustrations with professional journalism, what I like about blogging, what I don't like about it.

Giving you a score as a journalist it's a whole different game. I think you'd score low there and I think the discussion about wearing a wire while taking money as a print journalist is one of a list of reasons why. But I've actively and often argued with people who think you should be judged on that standard. It's a different standard with different rules. If it's true Lorraine Ahearn did something comparable, she shouldn't have. I can't speak to whether she did. I don't know Lorraine well, but I've never seen her do anything unethical.

When I talk about you not citing sources of information, reporting rumors or posting things that turn our to be wrong I'm talking about a newspaper standard, not a blogging one. I could print out your posts and take a red pencil to them like I would have when editing college newspaper writers learning how to report for newspapers -- but that's not what you want, it's not what I want and it serves no purpose. That's about journalism. Your site is about blogging and activism. Your goal isn't to be a newspaper writer. But if you want to understand where I'm coming from one of the simplest examples is your verbatim posting of GPD press releases -- which I realized about a week into this job are fraught with errors from the very spelling of peoples' names (which you'd think they could get right while looking at peoples' drivers licenses), charges, the names of charges, times, addresses and errors and omissions in the narrative. They give us wrong info in these things all the time, as you know -- sometimes by accident because they're human, sometimes because it makes them look better, sometimes who knows why. I've often gotten releases, done a half-hours' worth of reporting and found there to be all sorts of factual errors in them and corrected or omitted them before it makes its way into a brief or a story. Those same releases go on your site unvetted, cut and pasted. If you want me to research every instance and come up with a complete list I will - but I'm going to bill you for the time. You don't correct those because you don't have any idea the info's wrong. There's no reason you should know because as a blogger you get to write what you want to write, when you want to write it and you get to decide what's worth reporting and what's not. Is it a huge pain that we don't get to do that in journalism? Yeah. But we get paid, so we mostly whine when we're drinking.

I've missed my share too. I've gotten things wrong. I've made mistakes. We all do -- and we deal in the sort of volume that would make being perfect impossible. But we do our best and when we're wrong we correct it. While writing a number of other stories with original reporting on a daily news schedule with any number of constraints bloggers don't have. If we have to wait until the next edition and you put something mocking the error on your site an hour after the mistake hits the stands or website it does not follow that we're correcting things because of you. That's just really poor reasoning. As I don't write most of the things you take issue with (which, along with what seems like an obsession with some members of the staff you don't actually know sort of blunts your assertion that you don't read the paper) I can't speak to what people writing on the same things think about you -- but I know they're not sweating bullets over what you write and trying to keep up. They're getting it when they can get and confirm it, they're correcting it when they're aware they need to and they're following all of the standards they have to in order to get things into the paper whether you think they should be doing it faster in order to avoid being "scooped" or not. I wouldn't have them doing it any other way.

I'll admi it's a little annoying to me have bloggers Monday morning quarterbacking us while posting verbatim press releases and deciding it's only worth actually reporting the things they personally care about, then cursing at us when we don't choose to report the same things or report them in the same way, at the same time. Having been a blogger and a journalist I can tell you bloggers have luxuries we don't but we're still criticized as though we're playing the same game while (at least at my paper) avoiding criticizing bloggers because we don't think they should be judged as journalists. Though I've got to tell you -- I'm beginning to think I'm the only one in my building annoyed enough to actually come out and say something. Townsend and JR are, through experience and temperment, cool as cucumbers and are only worried about doing their jobs (and, in JR's case, supporting the very blogosphere that spits at him every day).

I'd like to follow their example and when I fail to do so it's ego and Irish temper on my part. I freely admit it's stupid and I should hold my tongue, swallow my pride and do my job even when people who don't understand the job thumb their noses at it. All while making allowances for doubting and criticism. If you don't think I already do that ask Fred Gregory or any other number of N&R readers who regularly write and call me how much time I spend respectfully and thoughtfully replying to letters and calls without calling anyone names or giving them the finger. Witness the way in which I'm willing to openly discuss every story I write in the blogosphere while there are reporters in town who wouldn't come onto a blog with a gun to their heads.

You and I are actually very much alike, Ben -- though we have our separate roles we're both doing to the best of our abilities. Whenever I've criticized you I've been as respectful as I know how and avoided getting personal. Whenever you want information from me you need only call and write -- mocking, presumptive blogposts aren't necessary or productive.

I know you've got problems with the N&R. Plenty of people do. I have a few myself. But I've never gotten anything from your site for anything I've written anywhere -- if you have some beef with other people who work in the same building I do, let it be with them. No use calling me nasty names and questioning my integrity over frustrations you have with people I work with who are smart enough not to get into Internet spitting matches with you.

[benholder]

Joe,

I am taken more serioulsy than you. That is just true... Your paper uses my work a lot. As far as you guys sweating me...Townsend (from an N&R source) ran to brady's house and clained he was there because of soemthing i wrote on my blog..dont kid yourself..you guys are reading me and taking notes...Bellamy-smalls traffic stop..from me...raynor being arrested on a thursday was double checked by me...not your paper..i reported it correctly...The things I have written about most often do end up in the N&R...you people cover what I have dating back to massage parlors....The police have worked to try to figure out how I am getting my info...it must be correct...why do you even care what is on my blog? Your paper wrote a long story about me and my blog a while back...I am a news source...a really well known news source...I also did not try and hide the wire...I told the GTRC...I felt i needed to...I did not feel the need to call you and tell you..please stop saying I was paid for it as well..it wasnt published... I scoop you guys with big stuff all the time,,,beverly Hinson being invovled in the check thingy? On my blog days before it was on yours...i got it confirmed first..and we all saw it come true in your paper days later...I really do not know why you think i am not seen as a news source...I am a very relaible news source to lots of people..even the N&R..if you want to see a bad example of blogging go see JR's post describing my blog...I have been a major factor in getting info to the public...rma report u got was from my work...tons of other stuff..when you do something amazing like uncover a story..i will say that..but until that time comes...I wish you would just recognize that I am right way more than I am wrong and the N&R reads my blog and reacts on many occasions...I feel you just write the same thing over and over again in comments...it gets boring..something nobody can call me..This is a silly thing trying to comment back and forth with you...You think you are great...I dont see it that way...I also dont think we are anyhting alike...you havnet lived enough life nor seen enough death...you havent changed anything about the way people live..i have...you didnt make sure the KKK got invited into the final GTRC..process...I did....blah blah blah...this is crazy,...if u cant see the stuff I do is valuable then stop reading the troublemaker...tell your co workers the same

[Joe Killian]

I'm not challenging you as a news-source.

I'm saying there's a difference between activist blogging and journalism.

And I don't think that's a bad thing.

I blog and I'm a working journalist. I think both are valuable.

[benholder]

Joe,

I am going to do this one more time. You questions are:

is what IS ethically unacceptable for bloggers who want to be news sources or even be equated with journalists? I am a news source because I get news...correct news..early..that is what makes townsend drive to bradys...banks report about small's ticket...a closer look at madison park....and the manager meeting w the bloggers

Withholding how information was obtained or your role until you're called on it or outed? Didnt withold it...Told the Peacemaker..told the GTRC..I have no obligation to reveal anything to you...you chose to come to my blog and read.

Journalists insisting that bloggers BE journalists are missing the point. But there are certainly points of ethical journalism that are helpful to bloggers who want to be seen as journalists or news sources. Again, I am a news source becuase of what shows up on my blog is early and correct..and also causes change..another person may have to step in line w the N&R to get blog respect...but I am a big boy...

but I'm making the point that he's a blogger and trying to have a conversation about which standards should apply to bloggers if they want to be taken seriously as news sources. Again, the N&r follows me...Obviously somebody is reading..I am not gonna list the stuff again that I have reported correctly..and changed

Your entire rant has been about bloggers vs. journalism...You get your best work...and I will get mine...You use the ethical wonderful standard that you have worked at and understand better than anyone alive I think....and i will get my best work off of my blog...and we will get them compared..mine will win...U get your worst post..and I will get mine..and your city commisoner whatever it was is an embarrasment to everyone who has ever driven in Greensboro..mine will have name calling...an american right on the internet...

My point...whether i follow your rules or not...I am a news source and considered as such...what I report is early and correct...

Your blog is much more of a my space account in my opinion. You shaved and went to a concert..magazine covers...I scanned your blog tonite..it is boring

If you think blogging is important in Greensboro then you gotta see me as pretty important...which makes me a news source..whether I wear a wire or a dress...I am still a wonderful news source...that is what you are not getting..

I wore a wire...Keep reading the Troublemaker for the rest of the story...

[benholder]

ps..

your great fact checking paper with full honor and great system chopped up my moms obit.all that had to be done was copy it......and you think you work for a good paper...geesh