Richard Mineards, the News-Press gossip columnist, wrote yesterday in his column: "Page Six, which runs in the New York Post and is considered America's top gossip column, lost no time in picking up my scoop on Oprah Winfrey's Montecito bash for Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, and the fact that the 2,000 guests would have to park eight miles from the Montecito venue and shuttle bus it to the glamorous camera-free gala."
His "scoop?" Excuse me. That item as well as those details were originally reported by the L.A. Times on it's Top of the Ticket blog back on August 17. It appeared the very next day on the Chicago Tribune's "The Swamp" blog which clearly stated the source was the L.A. Times blog of a day earlier.
Mineards column, where he appears to suggest these details were originally reported, did not run until August 21 in the News-Press, four days after they were reported on the L.A. Times website. Mineards didn't cite either The Times or The Tribune as being the source of his information.
That same day, Barney Brantingham, in his on-line column in The Independent, had the same info and details that Mineards did and linked to the Tribune blog as being his source.
As Mineards says, the New York Post, Page 6 website carried the item the following day and attributed it to Mineards without acknowledging that it had first appeared five days earlier on The Times' website, four days earlier on the Tribunes' website and contemporaneously with Barney's column. "Scoop?" Hardly.
If Mineards wants to report information that is generally available to anyone on the Internet I have no problem with that, but to suggest that it was "his scoop" as in, he was the first to report it, goes a bit far. It wasn't even close in this case. Just what we need, another News-Press columnist who is the number one worshiper in his own shrine.
Well, at least he's reporting local items.
To those of you have asked if I will be attending and writing about the Oprah/Obama bash the answer is no. I don't cover private parties. (Wink wink.)
My best wishes for a speedy recovery to Second District County Supervisor Janet Wolf who is recovering from surgery to remove blood that had collected around her brain as a result of a bicycle accident. According to KEYT, she is expected to make a full recovery and be back on the job in about two weeks.
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