Drifting is the lamest name ever, but here's a blog on it just the same

Hi. Been a while. What's new?

For a journalist, even for one who spends most of his time back in high school, there's nothing much worse than being beat. Not physically, of course, but getting beaten to the punch on a story. Someone else has your news. Someone did your job better than you.

It's nice when and if a bigger news outlet has a story, you at least have a similar one the same day. You may not be "beat," per se, and at the least you can learn something from it.

Here's a Tracy story from an Oakland TV outlet.

http://www.ktvu.com/video/12957065/detail.html

I have a story on this same situation, but mine is different. Personally, I think Patti Lee's story would have been better if she read some of my stuff on the track -- though she did get some details I didn't. And then again, she made some mistakes I wouldn't have made (John Condren is the operator, not the owner of the Altamont, and drifting is hardly new or unknown), so no one's perfect.

Here's the basic gist of the story.

There is a meeting this afternoon in Oakland. The Alameda County Board of Supervisors is going to rule on an appeal that protests a a decision made by the AC East County Board of Zoning Adjustments in March. That board voted 2-1 on an issue put on its agenda at the last second, an issue forcing a vote on whether or not to specifically allow drifting at a racetrack. It was appealed and is an issue now because almost all of the racetrack's neighbors are fighting it for a host of other reasons, and since the neighbors' lawyers feel the track violates all laws by racing anything at all, they are going to say so at today's meeting.

All this is less clear when you watch the news story.

Again, if you please:
http://www.ktvu.com/video/12957065/detail.html

But then mine --- www.tracypress.com, should be on the front --- doesn't necessarily tell the whole story, either. It's important to know that this isn't supposed to be a blanket decision on drifting per se. It has nothing to do with drifting. It's a decision on how the BOS are going to interpret a point of law. But that doesn't make good TV.

Yet I wish I had seen the TV clip before I wrote my story. I would be beat by default -- I can't get my story out the same day I do it -- but it would be better. Not because I beat Patti Lee, but because I would have been able to use her information and add it to the pile of "best information available" and -- by default -- write a better story.

Ergo, Better Journalism. A Very Good Thing for all, indeed.