Remember that little incident where Charley and I got booted from the MA-05 debate at NECN, at the request of the Ogo campaign? Well, like any good tempest in a teapot, this one isn’t going away. One of the segments in tomorrow’s “Beat the Press” on WGBH will feature yours truly in the taped piece, followed by Emily Rooney and her merry band discussing what it all means for bloggers, traditional media, and politicians. It’s actually kind of an interesting question.
And speaking of which, I had somehow missed the Lowell Sun’s brief write-up of the incident, which features a totally hilarious quote from Barney Keller:
“Supporters weren’t allowed in the studio,” Ogonowski spokesman Barney Keller said. “They’re her supporters, and they broke the rules.”
Uh, Barney? How was it, exactly, that we “broke” the “rules”? Did we bamboozle NECN into believing that we were not taking sides in this race, perhaps by masking our open support for Tsongas behind a Romulan cloaking device? Did we, perhaps, sneak into the studio, unnoticed by NECN personnel, after having been shown to the other room reserved for “supporters”?
Obviously not. We were invited by NECN to attend the debate (and we’ve been at NECN enough times that they know exactly where we stand). We showed up at the front desk. They told us where to go, and we went there. Then they asked us to move, and we did that too. For the record, the Tsongas campaign didn’t even know we were coming (at least, as far as I know they didn’t).
“Broke the rules.” LMAO! The only rule broken in the incident was the unwritten one suggesting that campaign staffers behave with a modicum of grace and common sense.
Barney thinks we just vaulted over the chain-link fence and snuck in the back door to the studio. Cue “Mission Impossible” music … or Judas Priest.
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No wonder Ogonowski is suckin’ wind with jokers like this giving him advice.
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(Lowell Sun misspelled my name. Gah.)
Simply turn it up to 11 and hit play.
I hear he does a lot of blogging.
I’ll look forward to their coverage, and in particular the thoughts of blogger Prof. Kennedy. At a minimum, they should be able to have some fun with this ridiculous issue.
she can complain again that “bloggers are not journalists” — even when they’re actually doing journalism.
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Is Keller doing tomorrow’s show? That would be funny.
You know that didn’t go so well last time….
Jon and Barney Keller…? I just thought Keller was a fairly common name.
but Barney is indeed the offspring of Jon.