Blogger Trashed By Long Beach City Council Members

Brett Snyder, the author of the popular aviation blog The Cranky Flier, was trashed in the media by Long Beach city council members after accurately reporting his interview with Jet Blue CEO Dave Barger.

It seems Jet Blue had intended to base its west coast hub at the Long Beach airport, but had become so frustrated with the slow pace of improvements that they were considering backing out and choosing a different location. This is not surprising news. Large scale construction projects get delayed all the time, and airport improvements are notoriously finished behind schedule.

However, it was surprising news to Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster and other city council members who were first hearing of Jet Blue's frustration after Snyder's blog story was picked up by the LA Times and the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

Rather than responding to Jet Blue or to the construction companies involved, the Long Beach Mayor instead decided to publicly state:

"We should not take blogs as professional journalism, and the professional journalists should take that as well."

Not to be outdone by the mayor, Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske also decided to publicly embarrass herself by saying:

"I do think that the reporting of the comment that was, by the way, leaked directly from somebody at JetBlue to the blogger and then sent directly to the Press-Telegram and the District Weekly . . . I think the reporting was irresponsible."

At this point there are plenty of ways Gerrie's out-of-touch and uninformed comments could be critiqued. But Brett Snyder said it best himself:

The comment was not leaked by anyone at JetBlue. I was invited to have a one-on-one sit down interview with CEO Dave Barger himself at the Phoenix Aviation Symposium... Everything you read came directly from him.

It doesn’t matter if this was written on a bathroom wall. It came directly from the CEO of the largest airline at this airport. Does it really do any good to try to discredit blogs or traditional media in the process? No. It also shows that they’re quite out of touch with the current state of reporting. There are many reputable blogs and discrediting them with a blanket statement like that will most certainly not serve them well.