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James Ledbetter and Katharine Mieszkowski

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Long Live Metro Reporting

By James Ledbetter
Posted Wednesday, Aug. 11, 1999, at 5:49 PM ET

Katharine,

The brilliance of good metro reporting always fades at a distance. It took years before the national press corps would even try to smell the rot around Ed Koch, so enamored were they of his echt-New York personality. Hell, it took years for the New York press corps to get wise to him.

Is there any chance that someone will swoop in and buy the Examiner? I know that as a business it must look pretty miserable, but in New York there's usually someone willing to lose millions a year in order to own a daily. The effects of that are often corrupting; if you're doing it to promote your real estate empire, for example, or to win favor with state and local politicians, it can get rather ugly. But it's somewhat better than losing the competition altogether.

Until tomorrow,
Jim

the breakfast table:
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Long Live Metro Reporting

By James Ledbetter
Posted Wednesday, Aug. 11, 1999, at 5:49 PM ET
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James Ledbetter is the New York bureau chief of the Industry Standard, a newsweekly covering the Internet economy. Katharine Mieszkowski is a senior writer for Fast Company magazine. Her commentaries about the Internet are heard on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered."
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