Asheville Citizen-Times columnist Tim Rawal says he’s leaving the newspaper. He and Mountain Xpress writer Jason Bugg had it out about a year ago. And this is apparently Round Two.
First, Rawal:
Many of you probably know more about me than you’d ever care to; details about the crummy apartment I inhabited during my time here, a few tidbits about my family and the odd peek into my brain.
I guess the climax of my literary career came in February 2007 when local blogger and Mountain Xpress freelancer Jason Bugg took his disdain for me to the Web, claiming my writing gave him the confidence to pursue his dream.
If my child, at age 30, ever tells me his dream is to write for a small, free alternative newspaper, I will chomp down on a cyanide capsule before you can even say “Fall Out Boy.” But hey, I’m here to make dreams come true, which I’m sure my leaving has done for many of you.
And yes, I’ve also received plenty of hate mail over the past couple of years. It never ceases to make me chuckle, though. Like the genius who chided me last year for detailing the inanities of my own life in a time when we are dealing with a crappy economy, a war on terror and an administration that has “hyjacked” (sic) our country. Granted, this person did have a reason to be angry, since I walked into his apartment, held his eyelids open “A Clockwork Orange”-style and forced him to read what I had written.
And now to Bugg. This is from his blog:
It’s amazing what working at a soul sucking hellhole company like Gannett will train someone to think. Apparently, my immediate reaction to it was “…okay great”. To me, it’s sad that this kid felt such disdain for me that I’m still, a year and a half later the highlight of this guy’s career. I’m not going into the minutia of what being a freelancer has done for me, because that would be a dick swinging contest and I hate that. Well, I don’t actually hate it but I’m too lazy to type right now. Let’s just say I’ve done more than sit in my cubicle and listen to my iPod while editorial mandated changes to bring in the 18-35 year old dollar.
But I guess the question I have from all of this is this: what the fuck? How the hell did this no talent hack who doesn’t have the talent to de-flea my roommate’s dog get a job doing what I want to do for a living? Who did he blow? I’m willing to bet that he has pictures of some higher up at Gannett blowing a small child.
3 Comments
I was all set to type "Advantage: Bugg" until the cheap comments at the end.
This is a sad little draw.
Oh snap.
=WL=
Vidal vs. Capote this ain’t.
But it does represent what I hate about local journalism, most of whom would rather hold pissing constests and focus on how they hate "the man" (ie., big business a la Gannett) rather than turn whatever limited creative resources they might have at their disposal to actually craft meaningful commentary and dig deeper into local issues. The C-T doesn’t do this; the XPress, despite its delusions of grandeur and hope of being the next Village Voice, doesn’t do this.
Let’s face it: community journalism is dead. The C-T is an awful paper, the XPress is hardly more than events listing and snide, self serving stabs at liberalism…
The average reader is fucked.