The Dagger apparently isn’t bush league enough to be considered for the Baltimore Sun’s “Mobbies,” a contest which highlights non-traditional media enterprises The Sun doesn’t consider a threat.
Or so we believe after reading the e-mail chain posted below between us and a polite Sun representative. To summarize: because we attempt to organize our reported stories instead of posting one long run-on list of links to other people’s work (as, say, the Politicker does) we’re not a blog and therefore not eligible.
In the Sun rep’s words:
“We have a blog defined in the official rules as “a blog, or weblog, is defined as a Web page with dated entries, with the most recent entries at the top of the page”
That’s kinda insane, as if someone decided earlier this decade that online news and comment couldn’t look any other way. We always hear people bash The Sun and other traditional media for ...Continue Reading
Well, that’s not exactly true. You see, I had just started a local cutting edge blog that allowed visitors to debate. Sound familiar? Anyway, a few emails were exchanged between Brian and myself, and I was told The Dagger was founded by a few ex-Aegis reporters. So offered a challenge. I was going to write an article on my site explaining why I thought newspapers should get out of the business of charging for their content online, as our local county newspapers did. The Dagger would host the counterpoint.
With the McDonald’s LPGA Championship in town this week, all of the talk will be about this being Annika’s last tournament here and Lorena’s chances at winning her 3rd major in a row. But what you won’t hear about is their trusty sidekicks – their caddies.
Larry Smich has caddied on the LPGA tour since 1977. He has been on the bag for 3 wins, two with Donna White, one in 1982 and the second in 1985. The last was in 1999 with Mi-Hyun Kim.
Larry is also an avid blogger. At his website, Life On Tour, Larry pulls the curtain back, blogging about life on tour without pulling any punches – especially concerning the pro golfers’ apparent distaste for the tournament since it moved from Delaware to Havre de Grace.
We interviewed Larry before the start of the LPGA:
The Dagger was offline this past weekend, quite literally at a wedding and a funeral. For everyone who’s still with us, a word of note: We received angry, angry emails from The Aegis and The Examiner over the past few days.
The Examiner editor reminded us that he’s worked for The New York Times, etc., and has “more than a dozen major awards to show for it.” The Aegis bristled and issued threats: “you guys are in way over your heads, but at least you have given more legitimacy to institutions like this one.” And, in a more sincere offering from a local newspaperman: “I believed you guys really had your hearts in it. But now I feel like it’s gone right to your heads.”
If we keep posting stories about ourselves, you’re sure to soon agree. And so, back to the election, folks…
Dagger: The double-edged blade. We have built and launched this blog as an experiment, and test case for what might happen when we distill years of conversation into published material. It is our hope not to fire missives from the distance, but to get up close to each subject; so close that we might twist a blade in its side.
We will publish news, rumor, opinion, style, substance, informal correspondence. We are a group of like-minded writers, musicians, photographers and agitators living in and around Baltimore; we are The Dagger and you can’t mess with us.
