RENWL

Before we let loose—and you bet all you’re worth we’re going to—we need to extend a sincere apology to the Courage Campaign for what we said about them asking for financial support for their creating a live feed Web site just for the Prop 8 trial. We want to apologize because Courage Campaign has in fact been at the forefront of the Prop 8 battle since day one. Since they have been at the forefront of the equality fight here in California they’re in a position to ask for support from the LGBT community and sympathizers.

Firedoglake on the other hand…well, there remains a teeny touch of concern on our behalf with their latest endeavor in their attempts to procure public funding for coverage of the Prop 8 trial on their Web site.

Here’s the line we find most appealing:

“If 3,000 people donate just $1 a day, we’ll be able to send Marcy Wheeler and David Dayen to cover the Prop 8 trial.”

Now let’s stop and work with that for a sec.

First, we need ask a question cause we wanna make certain we’re not overlooking any obvious gaps and holes that needed to be filled in regards of the media coverage of the Prop 8 trial: Sooooo—–based on the wealth of LGBT blogs, the rest of the Internet, trial participant live interviews on shows like Good Morning America and The Today Show, evening and morning news coverage on both cable and network television, word-of-mouth efforts, emails and newspapers around the nation—and that’s not including the coverage resources we’ve posted here on RENWL such as the real-time live feed Web sites of organizations like the Courage Campaign and news outlet Mercury News who also has a real time live feed site—which by the way between them both these resources have enough blow-by-blow  accounts of every move made inside that courtroom short of a poorly-stifled belch.

So with all that does anybody feel like there’s a shortage of coverage going on for the Prop 8 trial?

We’re gonna go ahead and make the carefree assumption that you’re all probably shaking your heads with a vigorous—NO.

So we find it interesting that Firedoglake would hold a fundraiser—-$3000—to support scribes Marcy Wheeler and David Dayen in covering the Prop 8 trial—sending them to San Francisco from LA we presume. That’s a lot of money just to go up the road, we think.  A roundtrip Greyhound bus ride and floppin’ on a friend’s sofa for a spell shouldn’t be so expensive.  This aside, we find this fundraising endeavor even more intriguing since we discovered that the guy they actually have providing live coverage from the Prop 8 trial is a gentleman named Teddy Partridge.

But wait. Teddy Partridge lives in San Francisco.  Why that’s odd. And then there’s this tweet we received from Dave Dayen yesterday saying he’s headed to the Pasadena courthouse:

“headed to pasadena to cover the Prop 8 trial via simulcast at district court http://firedoglake.com/prop8trial

about 20 hours ago from web Retweeted by you“

ddayen

And another one from Dave later on giving high props to Teddy up in San Fran:

“Great job by @teddysanfran on Prop 8 trial liveblogging today – readable and visceral. http://firedoglake.com/prop8trial about 7 hours ago from web

Retweeted by you and 1 other”

ddayen

The three thousand dollars—what’s that for? Firedoglake you have someone blogging from the trial who already lives in San Francisco. Why are you still begging for cash from the public for Dave Dayen who’s covering the trial from Pasadena? It doesn’t take three grand for a cat to hump it across LA.

The fundraising pitch on the Firedoglake Web site is still up by the way. Let’s cut to the chase: We think Firedoglake is pulling a fast one, here. We think their actions lack integrity. In other words, they’re using the Prop 8 trial as a vehicle to make some fast cash—-preying on the tender and emotional state of minds of our LGBT community. We here at RENWL do not respect that.

FIREDOGLAKE YOU REALLY NEED TO TAKE THAT FUNDRAISER CONTENT DOWN OFF YOUR WEBSITE AND RETURN ANY MONIES YOU’VE CONFISCATED SO FAR FROM PEOPLE WHO BELIEVED YOU WERE BEING HONEST IN YOUR REQUEST.

SO FAR IT LOOKS LIKE CLOSE TO $400.00. GIVE IT BACK.

And the fact of the matter is, the absence of any coverage from Firedoglake wouldn’t make a gumdrop of difference in terms of the already abundance of coverage of the Prop 8 trial. But the audacity to ask people to pay pony up $3000 (wait—a dollar each) so that your bloggers could go to San Francisco—-and then to turn around and use a blogger who already lives in San Francisco while still fundraising—-that’s a lot of nerve.

TAKE THE FUNDRAISING CONTENT OFF YOUR SITE AND RETURN ALL MONEY YOU HAVE RECEIVED. SHAME ON YOU.

UPDATE: Wait. We just took another look at the Firedoglake Prop 8 trial donation page. We actually don’t know how much money Firedoglake has taken in. It says a dollar a day from 3000 people for an indefinite period. We don’t know how much money they’ve collected so far. For all we know they may have already taken in thousands of dollars so far.  Look at the page: http://firedoglake.com/prop8trial/

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