[B5JMS] AICN coverage of Richard Biggs' passing

[b5jms at cs.columbia.edu]

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From: Dan  Maniotis <dan_maniotis at hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 29 May 2004 00:17:51 +0000 (UTC)
Lines: 38

Tried to post this earlier, but my newsreader flipped, hope this isn't a
dupe ...

The folks at aintitcool.com had an interesting way of reporting Richard
Biggs' passing.

A few people sent the AICN staff notes to let them know about it right after
it happened, including me. Yesterday they finally ran a one-line note mixed
in with a bunch of other Joss Whedon and Dr. Who news blurbs at
http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=17663. But don't bother checking
the link to read the blurb, it's been removed. It ran something like, "For
the six or seven B5 fans who haven't heard, Richard Biggs, who played Dr.
Stephen Franklin on the show, died of an apparent stroke this past Saturday
at the tender age of 43." That's it. No mention of his wife, two sons, or
their college fund. No mention of the buzz for the B5 film we all hoped to
see Richard Biggs be part of. For my money, this showed little to no
respect. Apart from that, just conveyed far too little pertinent information
about a tragic event that's obviously affected many, many people. It was
insensitive, incompetent reporting.

When a few people complained (not abusively, either, just expressing deep
disappointment) that this antiseptic one-liner was somewhat disrespectful,
they deleted the blurb and all the talkbalk posts complaining about its
insensitivity. This uber-geek guerilla news site evidently felt revisionism
was the way to handle their mistake.

Talk about thinking you're bigger than your medium. I always thought of AICN
as an underdog, and rooted for them accordingly. But I see now their
self-image is that of a stuck-up French poodle. Who do these guys think they
are? How can these guys believe their own hype -- hype which they
generated -- when they can't even spell?

That's the last banner ad impression they get from me. I hope they live long
enough to be shown the same level of respect for their accomplishments in
life -- which are far fewer than Richard's.




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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: Sat, 29 May 2004 04:24:37 +0000 (UTC)
Lines: 24

>Apart from that, just conveyed far too little pertinent information
>about a tragic event that's obviously affected many, many people. It was
>insensitive, incompetent reporting.
>
>When a few people complained (not abusively, either, just expressing deep
>disappointment) that this antiseptic one-liner was somewhat disrespectful,
>they deleted the blurb and all the talkbalk posts complaining about its
>insensitivity. This uber-geek guerilla news site evidently felt revisionism
>was the way to handle their mistake.

Be a real shame if somebody hacked their site....



 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
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