Last year organizers saw a 50% increase in people attending Oktoberfest from the previous year (20,000 to 30,000). So, why fix a brand that ain't broken? Who are the ad wizards who came up with this one?
UPDATE: I received the following e-mail from G-town's John Horton:
Please verify your information before publishing. For example, Church of the Assumption and Monroe Street United Methodist are preparing for Oktoberfest 2008 just as they did every year before HGN joined their partnership. Your statement as to why HGN withdrew from the partnership is incorrect and inflammatory. Please be more diligent and publish accurate information or clearly state the information is your opinion based upon rumor.In my opinion, blogging is a way to verify information by publishing. If I say something at a community meeting that is not exactly correct, someone else can stand up and say, "That's not exactly correct. I have first hand information to the contrary." Writing information that I hear coming from Germantown is not that much different than speaking it. I'm communicating a perception of what is going on that exists. I'm not a journalist nor do I publish this blog under the auspices of professional (a.k.a., "salaried") news reporting. So, in essence most of what I write is interpretative and editorial (except for that publicity in the past that Oktoberfest leaders wrote and asked me to post on the blog, which I did with no fees and with no material gain for myself).
But by allowing comments and adapting my posts based on comments, Enclave is an expression of open social fact-checking, which is more than you'll get from the paid press. Writing here is not static but communicative, and hence, it is everchanging as various perceptions of the truth come in. It is intersubjective.
I was communicating my disappointment based on what I recently heard (which pretty much concedes subjectivity, which may or may not be the same as "rumor," depending on what is meant by "rumor"), open to the possibility that maybe there is a misperception out there. But now I throw it back to Germantown neighborhood and church leaders working on Oktoberfest and the Germantown Street Fest: if there are misperceptions of what is going on out there, then have you adequately communicated your products to the neighborhood?
So, now a Germantown leader gets his view published here because it serves communication. However, it is still clear to me that Oktoberfest looks divided and like a shadow of the strong thing that it was (or maybe I should write "that it seemed," since the perception of strength may have only been a rumor that I should have checked rather than communicated).
Just admit that a blog is no more than a 21st century gossip column.
ReplyDeleteAnd when you publish inaccuracies you have to remember what sticks the hardest is the first thing the great unwashed masses see first. And after that, it is an uphill battle to set the record straight.
Oh, I've gone way beyond labeling blogs as gossip columns. I've agreed in the past with Molly Ivins, who called bloggers "opinion mongers." That's the apt description. I've never sold myself as a "citizen journalist," but I am a writer who writes low to the ground (sometimes below radar).
ReplyDeleteCommunicating inaccuracies on line is no different than communicating them in speech, in my opinion. I published Mr. Horton's comments not because I was forced to but because his perceptions should be read alongside mine. It's pretty clear that he sets the record straight that two churches (not Historic Germantown) will be having Oktoberfest. What's not so clear are the reasons for the separation. He doesn't deny that Historic Germantown is having their own street festival apart from the churches.
How is the sum total of this post, including the update, both washed and unwashed, failing to set the record straight?