The article, chronicling the move of Yankee Stadium by one city block, examines the uncertainty that the owners of popular sports bar "Stan's" are facing now that the old stadium is no more.
“It’s really a big mystery,” said Mr. Dene, who bought the bar from his father, Stan Martucci, 11 years ago. “You can ask 10 people, and eight will tell you that the tradition and uniqueness of Stan’s will live on. And the other two will tell you you’ve got all this corporate competition and people will have to come to Stan’s with intent instead of stumbling upon it.”The quote does a great job of encapsulating the feeling of defiant anxiety that the owner of the bar is feeling right now. It is also a quote that anyone could have gotten. This may just be a human interest story, but it is a human interest story that is only reported on by the mainstream media. So is this one that was also just published by the NY Times.
While reading the stories, we realized that there was absolutely no access required to gather the quotes and information. Is there any reason that articles like the ones linked above can't originate from this very blog? Katherine Bindly and Rebecca Flynt Marx did excellent work on the stories, and we try to stay humble. However, there are certain times when the journalism degree starts to rear its ugly head and we realize that perhaps we have the opportunity to help change the way people receive their news.
Blogs are hobbies - nobody is making a career out of it, not even Fake Steve Jobs - but what if we spent less time perusing our addictive RSS Feed and more time actually going out to find the news. Stadium Insider headquarters is just minutes from the 161 st. stop on the 4 train. What if some of those Google Reader hours were spent speaking to Louis Dene? A lot of us feel like in order to do something productive, we need to receive immediate compensation for it. Perhaps if more of us tested our limits more often, we really could change the world, one fluff piece at a time.
