I just had to add that exclamation point at the end of my title even though most of the rest of the world will find this post ho-hum. I’ve been blogging for four years and using the Times as a media source almost every day. I’ve never been linked at the Nytimes.com site, ever. Here’s how Tikun Olam found itself linked there.
Tikun Olam in the TimesI helped create a historic preservation group, Uphold Our Heritage, which is fighting to preserve Jackling House. This is the house that Steve Jobs has been fighting for four years to demolish. The group won a major legal battle in California Superior Court with a judge turning down Jobs’ request to demolish the house, which was designed by renowned California architect, George Washington Smith.
I’ve written several posts about the legal battle. Yesterday, a Silicon Valley online gossip rag (yes, there are such things I guess!), Valleywag.com, picked up my story. The only problem is that the editor got the story wrong in one fundamental detail. He wrote:
the town acts like he wants to build a giant Borg cube designed by Jonathan Ive. They say the old house is too historical to tear down.
Actually, the Town of Woodside would love for Jobs to tear down the house and build a “giant Borg cube” on the site. Only Uphold Our Heritage stood between Jackling House and the wrecking ball.
Valleywag.com’s story was in turn picked up by the Times’ real estate blog, Walkthrough. So that’s how I made the Times.
For several years I’ve been complaining that the Times is behind the times (so to speak) technologically. I’ve pointed out how the Nytimes.com site does not integrate common online features into its site. But I have to say that if these new niche blogs that the Times offers can decentralize and democratize the site enough so it can include someone like me who’s previously been ignored–then clearly Marty Nisenholtz and Nytimes.com are doing something right.
Congrats, Richard. I’ve enjoyed following the Jobs/Jackling House story on your blog..
Congratulations – hopefully it won’t be the last time and hopefully they will pick up on some of your poitical/foreign policy insights as well.
Elemental: Fun deyne oyren tzu Gott’s augeheren (“From your mouth to God’s ears”).
I look at blogging as a slow war of attrition in reverse. You slog away at it and gradually more folks are aware of what you’re doing. Eventually, your local paper takes notice, then you get a link at a national media site and maybe someone even invites you to write for a more mainstream publication that actually pays you (hasn’t happened to me yet). But each bit of recognition helps get you to the next step. At least I hope so.
Regarding the Jackling house in Woodside, Ca.
FYI….The Biltmore Hotel in Montecito (Santa Barbara) was designed by Reginald Johnson, not George Washington Smith.
Great commentary on the house though.
Thanks for setting me right about that. I know G.W. Smith designed the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and several other major public buildings that lend the city its unique architectural style.