Feel a little bad for Gotham Schools?
Maybe just a little. They got hammered in their comments sections today. (I’ve cut and pasted some comments at the bottom of this post)
Their site has major short-comings. No one should be surprised hearing this from me. You’ve seen it on this blog, more than once, and in the last two weeks I’ve mentioned it no less than 3 times, at Pissed Off Teacher, at The Notebook, and indirectly, through corrections of their Rise and Shine summaries, which I corrected once, twice this week. (They ignored me). Would have done it a third time, but Tom Hoffman beat me to it. (and honestly, I looked for a summarizing or factual error this morning, just a four day week, and did not find one).
But I did not expect to find the flurry of attacks today. They focused on the website’s lean (pro-charter, pro-reform), on their habit of rehashing news from other outlets, and on their lack of independent reporting. Truthfully, I found them a little mean. But not wrong.
I will return to Gotham Schools, and some of its problems, in the near future. They go beyond what today’s commenters touched, to the core of how the construction of the organization reflects the purpose of the organization, and how the construction of the organization influences its daily work.
Why do you folks at GS failure to do any journalism of your own?
GS should report with accuracy on the unjust plight of the ATRs
I thought the folks who ran GS were reporters. There seems to be a lot of compelling questions to answer here instead of treating us to a daily stream of articles from the Post. I don’t understand why you don’t do your own reporting.
What you are asking of Gotham is to do something they are incapable of. Reporting news, finding news, uncovering news.
Hey, why do I have to lean to the right when I read these headlines?
This website spends too much time pushing the anti-public education “reform” agenda..
Gotham, stop shilling for the mayor and the New York Post.
JD2718 
I also have become more disappointed with their reporting. I believe some of the education bloggers have brought up good points about what Bloomberg wants to do and Gotham Schools have ignored them.
I do not know if they are slanting right, but it seems they are given the education deformers and Charter School advocates the majority of articles and ignoring the real issues behind their attack on senior teachers.
I honestly didn’t believe they were slanting right at all –until I saw the American Spectator make it into their eve summary tonight. Yikes!
Geez, we all know GS reporters are shills for the pro charter ed deformers and hedge hogs. They’re no different than the DoE or Bloomberg’s press office. They’re actually the new press office for the charters, regurgitating the Com Post’s news.
They’re funded by the hedge hogs, their paychecks come from the hedge hogs so what do you expect?
GS is THE charter/ed deform propaganda news outlet.
I come to Gotham school to see what the enemy is saying and now I come to find that Gotham Schools is just a compilation of leaflets spouting rhetoric for Bloomberg and his buddy Murdoch. I will still read you because it is important to keep our enemies close. As someone mentioned above write about the plight of the ATR’s–that is a true story of a great injustice.
Here’s your chance to make the jump- http://www.ourschoolsnyc.org
Who is “Our Schools NYC”? I can’t find any identifying info on the site.
Gotham Schools is really the education version of the Drudge Report. They consolidate articles. Every once in a while, when a topic is hot, they may show up and blog at a PEP meeting. For the most part, not to offend, they appear to be unemployed 2nd tier journalist.
Why don’t they attempt to sit down with the movers and shakers..Mulgrew, Black, Steiner, Tisch, Ravitch.
Instead, they find the only people that would talk to them Sydney and Evan.
Disappointment reigns, man. I prefer that if an organization is calling themselves an educational reporting site, that they speak to all sides. If you’re going to report what the Post reports, also report what the Sun does. If there’s an article about Rhee, report on Ravitch, too. Don’t just give a couple of lines to Mulgrew when you give whole paragraphs to Klein / Bloomberg and their ilk. They’re also a reflection of what media looks like now, too. NYTimes is like that, so is Newsweek / TIME Mag / CNN / MSNBC etc. Corporate dollars reign.
I do feel a little bad for them – some of the criticism was unnecessarily harsh. But yeah, if you hang your hat on one issue, and your reporting leaves you vulnerable to criticisms of the quality, yeah, expect someone to jump on that sooner or later.
I need to write more, not just “word-bites.” Soon.
It is important to see issues from all sides to give a valid report no matter what the issue is. Research sources and seek the truth.