No linky-love from Gawker?

Hell hath no fury like a blogger scorned (and I wrote the book on hell.)

To put it more gently, bloggers have the thirst of desert crawlers (it’s a cartoonist tech thing) when it comes to acknowledgments and links.

So I was feeling sorry for myself, not having been linked anywhere in a couple of days, and I googled myself, for a change of pace. To my surprise, I saw my name listed in a Gawker blog. You may have heard of Gawker, one of the biggest blogs in the world. Or chain of blogs, actually. This was in Gizmodo, which I never heard of, but which is so so techy, the biggest Gawker, with 50 million readers a day, they claim.

“This is a trick, to make me try soy milk, isn’t it?” COPYRIGHT 2008 by Donna Barstow.

It was Gizmodo’s post on June 10, about those damn bird balls thrown into Ivanhoe, which the damn dwp twisted into a freaking PHOTO OP, instead of the stealthy environmental disaster, historical monument destruction, and probable degradation of the water quality that it really is. Also, an opportunity for every writer in the city to use their favorite unoriginal jokes about balls. (Gizmodo didn’t say all this of course, I did. They just said, like everyone else, look at the pretty black balls.)

Actually, my name wasn’t in the post. It was only in the comments. Here, in a comment at 7:42 by MagnoliaBoy:

from the link

‘Bloggers who’ve been following the reservoir story include CSSLR, LA MetBlogs, Donna Barstow and Curbed LA. …’

No Gawker love?

Hmm. No names or links in the actual post now, although when Magnoliaboy read it, obviously it HAD been in the post. (Blog etiquette says to use links and mention tips for your sources. Kind of like the MSM, you know?) No names, OR links, for CSSLR, LA Metblogs, Curbed LA, or…me. It’s not that I expect the MSM to look for news stories from me – in fact, I’m usually surprised that anyone ever finds me, with over 100 million blogs swarming around! (Even though this would not be my first choice for fave subjects, I am #8 in Google for bird balls, so I do have some contribution.) It’s not entitlement; my real question was, why were a bunch of LA blogs listed, then removed?

I wrote to Brian Lam, the editor of Gizmodo to ask him if perhaps they don’t link to bloggers; I’m not familiar with the Gawker chain. I added that I had done more research on the bird balls than any other writer in the city.

He replied that he didn’t frequent my blog, either. He said they always link to the source. He said he would link to me if I sent him my post, and asked if I had sent them a tip. He asked me if I was being passive aggressive.

I said I don’t send tips unless people want them, or I know the person fairly well. I said I didn’t think asking why my name had been in the post and then disappeared was being passive aggressive, so, no.

He replied:

This is a few weeks old now, or something. I’ll pass along the email.

What are you claiming was yours again?

I give up. I don’t like to chase men, even if it’s sexy big he-men like the Gawker crowd. They’re not ready for a relationship now, anyway.