As I’m preparing one of the last few posts I’ll be bothering to do during the slowest news weeks of the year, I’ll ask the few of you lurking around what you thought was/were the biggest stories or your favorite BP posts of 2008.
I hope your Christmas was joyful and peaceful, and thank you guys for your kindness, your discussion, and readership this past year. I’ve said it over and over again that I write this blog for my own benefit, as my own way of venting or commenting about random crap. The fact that you guys take the time to read any of it is humbling, and I am grateful.
We spent Christmas Day together opening presents, sipping homemade eggnog that was filled with win, I helped Madeleine – who is crazy about ancient Egypt – build a pyramid, and I helped Mia set up a massive Dora the Explorer playhouse. My wife tells me we went through about two dozen eggs, between the eggnog and the hollandaise sauce for breakfast’s eggs and roesti-like hash browns. I felt a personal sense of triumph when I managed to get my daughter’s PC to actually recognize and latch onto the house’s wifi (a frustrating rarity), and we entered in Webkinz codes and got her started on something called U.B. Funkeys, which are pretty neat, and are not pink and princessy for a change. Mia got an old-school Teddy Ruxpin, which she first dubbed “creepy” before she started playing with it with gusto.
It was a perfect Christmas, surrounded by my loving family, taking it easy, and celebrating.
The Buffalo Record 
Your lucky to get into webkinz world, the que was quite long Christmas day. But you should take it easy on the raw egg eating.
my favorite bp posts during 2008 were the ones that had the niagara falls reporter going out of business (“i don’t take any pleasure in…”), about how the reporter’s editor was mobbed up with jack davis, steve pigeon, tom golisano etc., and the way the paper smeared poor sam hoyt for banging a couple of young albany interns!
as far as 2008 news stories, the phenomenal sales of “mob boss: a biography in blood” — the entire first edition of 2500 copies sold out in 27 days! — was a feat unrivaled in western new york publishing history. and the fact that the buffalo news, artvoice, niagara gazette etc. have all refused to review it makes that singular triumph all the more stupefyingly stunning!
for those who waited too long to visit their local borders, barnes & noble, falling leaves or book corner, a second printing is on the way, with delivery expected on monday.
happy holidays!
But all newspapers are on life support and it maybe better to pull the plug like Bruce wanted too, rather than to publish a handout that Oswald could of handed out in 1962 on a street corner.
One of my favorites was the Wendt Foundation/Casino lawsuit. It wasn’t so much the original story itself, but the firestorm that ensued.
That, and the traveling Pan Am house.
yes, the pan am house, excellent. senator al made his point and entertained us all!
the wendt foundation story was the high water mark, 2008, for actual journalism by chris & alan… to that i say “bravo!”
and since you brought it up, mike, december marked the highest monthly ad revenue pulled in by the reporter in its nine years of existence. you can read on poynter, editor & publisher or the columbia journalism review — all of which have featured articles on the paper — how free, niche-market weeklies devoted to hard community news are thriving while union-strapped metro dailies and tired old “infotainment” formats like artvoice are dying on the vine.
The biggest news story of the year is the current economic nose dive at the hands of the government managed economy. Watching the politicians scramble to preserve their house of cards is as funny as it is sad.
I believe Mike in WNY meant government mismanaged economy
best stories suppressed by pundit include how obama chief of staff rahm emanuel, obama white house senior advisor valerie jarret the president-elect himself have been questioned by the fbi about the blagojevich affair, even though or maybe because obama initially denied that there was any contact between his camp and the indicted governor’s; that obama filled his cabinet with former clinton and bush appointees, putting to lie his earlier promises of “change” and “hope”; and the way he invited virulent anti-gay preacher rick warren to deliver the invocation at his coronation, um, inauguration.
down the memory hole!
newsflash hudson is not only an asshole but a sore loser too!!
what did i lose? i voted for obama, as did the redhead, as did the four elderly ladies we picked up and took with us to the polling place, if you’re talking about that.
i was discussing journalism, something you know less than nothing about. hell, i can remember when you said the feds had nothing on vince anello. before he got indicted.
There may have been bigger stories in 2008, but for me, the most memorable was the endless barrage of self-aggrandizement and crypto-racism that was the comments of Mike Hudson.
Christ, Hudson….Angelyne, Sally Kirkland and Sylvia Miles combined think you’re over the top.
don’t you dare say anything about the lovely sylvia miles!
crypto racism, now that’s funny. racism in a crypt.
Hudson being an asshole and a sore loser is not exactly a newsflash.