Word out of the San Diego Comic-Con (the cool kids call it SDCC) is that the comic book website Newsarama won an Eisner award for Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism. I normally don’t put much stock into awards, but seriously, Newsarama, an award for journalism?
It seems to me that whoever decided Newsarama should win an award for journalism either does not know the meaning of the word journalism or didn’t get wind of the recent Heroes Con panel entitled, “Covering Comics: Criticism, Reportage, and Gossip“. Newsarama’s co-founder and current editor Matt Brady attended the panel and made some startling comments.
Among the many things Brady said was that there had been times where he had to think about the long term picture before breaking a story. He admitted that he sometimes worried about repercussions from the publishers if he (Newsarama) was the first to break certain stories. He said that sometimes he would ask himself if it was more prudent to “hang back” and allow certain stories to break elsewhere — like a blog or a rumor column — and comment on the story then.
I would think that if you are going to hang back and allow someone else break a story so that you don’t get flack from the Marvel or DC, you are not a comic book journalist. You are certainly not an award winning comic book journalist.
