Celia Cohen: A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of the Delaware Way
One of the first businesses affected by the downturn in business was Celia Cohen’s Grapevine “blog.” Perhaps Celia had seen her 401K get large enough that she didn’t have to work any more. Who knows. But one thing is certain, she wants back into the game.
We know Celia for the fawning, inside baseball, incumbent-lover that she is, but apparently not everyone feels that way. DelawareLiberal.Net has obtained a letter that has been mailed to the Delaware Way crowd to ask for a bailout for Celia. The authors of this letter are the two opponents for Delaware’s lone congressional seat… in 1974… Pete duPont and Prof. Jim Soles.
We all know Pete, but Professor Soles is interesting. He has two positions at UD named after him and he contributed heavily to Barack Obama in the election. He is a little suspect, since Celia called him “a bi-partisan Democrat” Celia has written about him several times, including a post about his current gig.
The letter lays out the wonderful things that Celia brought to the table, such as the quote “Democrats like politics. Republicans like winning.” I prefer Celia on Rudy Guiliani in Delaware:
The Republicans also could console themselves that they were seeing something their Democratic counterparts most likely will not — a potential presidential candidate who comes to court them.
Classic. How can we all help get Celia back in the saddle so she can dish on all of the people that used to be relevant? By sending her money, of course. The letter claims that the Grapevine will be hosting the website at Delaware Today, which means that the money must be going to Celia’s salary. I’m thinking that no one kisses ass like someone with a dozen sugar-daddies to please.
Celia can’t make on her own, she never could. She had to rely on some angel (perhaps duPont?) to keep paying the bills for her, since she never attracted advertisers to her site. So now she is hoping that the subscription model will do it for her. She is kind of like NPR, but with only a column a week about your fellow subscribers, is it really worth it?
Best of luck, Celia. If you can take a few rich people for 50 grand a year to write about their social events, more power to you. But never try to pawn yourself off as an even-handed journalist, we know how this works.
Tags: Local Media Sucks!, Media Watchdog
If we can find out how much Castle and Caper donate toward this we will be able to peg an exact market rate for a Cohen blow job.
I’ll have more to say on this later.
Jim Soles was the inspiration for Tom Carper’s political career, and mentored Carper’s mentor, Ed Freel. That defines ‘bipartisan Democrat’.
To paraphrase Dorothy Parker (‘Bulo’s alleged dad was once a dishwasher at the Algonquin Club), Pete duPont and Jim Soles ‘run the gamut of political thought from A to B.’
Celia’s column should be a hit with the Cokesbury Village crowd, though. She goes down real well with soft-boiled eggs.
When I was doing the WHYY election night gig as the blogger from the left and David Anderson was taking the bloggr from the right seat. Soles and Rochford were doing the commentary from grown-ups. (Needless to say thier face time ratio to ours was somehting like 20:1)
Anyway, Soles comes into the studio with an old Grapevine column in his hand which he used as a crib sheet. True Story.
DuPont & Soles want Grapevine back b/c Celia’s the only one who actually considers them ‘sources’ anymore.
Here is my questions for Pete. If you think this is valuable, why the cupcake sale? Just pay for it.
My question for Delaware today is how much does it cost to pretend that I’m a DT columnist? Maybe I’ll rent some space over there since it is turning into a community access project.
And I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for these darn kids and their dog!
Hey, Jason and it was a pleasure sitting with you. I hope that we can do it again.
I am hope Ms. Cohen succeeds. I like her. She did give the establishment point of view, but I considered it quite valuable because it let the rest of us into the circle a little bit each day. It gave one more perspective.
We can handle the rebel masses between us.
David,
Likewise on the WHYY thing.
Getting paid by keepers of the Delaware Way probably means that those keepers will be getting the news, info and gossip they paid for.
This would, at least, bring some transparency to a situation that existed for 6 years while Cohen pretended to be an objective poltical journalist.
And BTW – if anyone thinks that Im too hard on poor Celia who has a right to earn a living like everyone else, I say “Phooey.”
It is an established fact that lapdog journalists like her who protected people like Mike Castle have damaged this country. What she did was worse than doing a poor job.
She did a good job for people intent on evil.
Perhaps more transparency — but also the people paying get to buy the narrative they want. In a place as small as Delaware — and the Delaware Way looking for ways to persist — buying some reporting that will always and everywhere make the Delaware Way a force for good only helps them stay entrenched abit longer.
CC is following many people’s plan to become rich by blogging. How many blogging professionals are there? Not too many. I’m not sure a single-blogger model can work without support of a major media outlet.
Say what you want, but Ms. Cohen from anything I ever read, never resorted to vile, specious attacks, or sensationalism of the mundane. Her writing was tight, professional, and clever–an editor’s dream. Content may put you in a tailspin, but you sure can’t argue her syntax and professionalism. Remember–she was one of the first out of the gate here in Delaware to voyage the blogosphere–unchartered waters then. You have defined your own style, on the shoulders of people like Cohen. I welcome her back, if this is true, to see if it’s a return, or a re-invention or hybrid of media delivery that she is proven capable of possibly launching. There’s room for everyone out there in cyberspace, and if you don’t like it–don’t read it. But she is a talent with the written word.
I have a business model for Celia:
1. Get a job
2. Blog in your spare time for free
I mean, how much does it really cost to take phone calls from incumbents and write them up?
But she is a talent with the written word.
That’s good. She is also a liar.
I remember one column in particular when she flat out lied about a bunch of old hippies opening a Howard Dean HQ in Newark.
My big problem with the column had to do with the fact that there were was possibly one hippie in the group of 60.
It was the most biased unobjective, written to suit “the Delaware Way” peice of garbage that I had ever read. And when I started paying attnetion to her I learned that lying to build up Mike Castle was at the very heart of her mission as a “journalist.”
“never resorted to vile, specious attacks, or sensationalism of the mundane…you sure can’t argue her syntax and professionalism”
It’s not high school theme-writing class, JC. She lost her job at TNJ because, among other things, she wouldn’t dig for anything interesting. She was writing a newsletter for political insiders, and it’s what she’ll do again if anyone will pay for it. Whatever else that is, it ain’t journalism, except in the most basic sense.
Jason –
Would that be this column, which doesn’t mention the word “hippie” anywhere?
http://www.delawaregrapevine.com/jan04stories/1-04%20prezroundup.htm
The Delawareans for Dean tended to have the look of the last lingering protesters from the Sixties and the Days of Rage. It made Jessica Howell of Pike Creek Valley stand out — as a youthful, first-time volunteer who said she was attracted to Dean as an anti-war candidate because “he spoke out about it and wasn’t afraid to.”
All that says is that there were a lot of older activists there. True, or not?
Again, I say content may put you in a tailspin, but clarity of thought is there. She may not be seeking this position as an “unbiased journalist”, but a political pundit with talent. We’ll see.
So anon — what was this:
tended to have the look of the last lingering protesters from the Sixties and the Days of Rage
intended to mean?
Thanks for linking to that horeshit. It reminded me of another lie at the heart of the peice.
….getting about 100 “Deaniacs” … the Dean campaign stocked its rally with ringers — about 75 from New Jersey and a dozen or so from Pennsylvania”
The crowd of 100 was made up of 75 people from PA and 25 from NJ. MMmmmm…. that’s some good objective reporting!
The fact is that the over 150 member strong Delaware Dean meetup staffed and ran that thing.
Rona Barrett also had clarity of thought, but was also clear she was trading on gossip. I’m not so sure I’d put Cohen in the league of Charlie Cook, but you’d think that if she was that talented and in demand she’d be able to publish her own highly valued newsletter.
The real criticism of Cohen is that she is part and parcel of the worst of the Delaware Way — which will always undermine any pretenses to journalism. Which isn’t to say that she didn’t occasionally have scoops or other info that was awfully useful. It is to say that she was the Official Secretary of the Club.
Cassandra,
That means they were older, experienced activists who’d been around the block.
Methinks you both doth protest too much. Kind of like the conservatives who say there’s a liberal bias in the media. You read far too much into every sentence.
I’ll chip in to the Celia fund if she allows comments on her new blog.
Anon 22,
Bullshit. There was a story there to write which she ignored because she knew the story that her paymasters wanted written.
That’s how she rolled and that is how, no doubt, will roll in the future. Like Geek says, more power to her – but let’s not pretend that she is a journalist.
BTW – As the state’s number one Cohenologist, I’m not sad at the prospect of being back in business.
Jason,
Bullshit on you. You have no evidence that she had any “paymasters” whatsoever, let alone that she wrote what they wanted to write.
It’s only your assumption that she had people underwriting Grapevine. When you have facts to back up your opinions, let me know.
Sincerely,
Anon22
Bullshit yourself, anon. She was upfront about somebody bankrolling the site, she just never said where the money was coming from.
And where did she say that?
Ask her yourself if you don’t believe me. She never lied about it.
And I don’t think that anon knows much about the Days of Rage OR what the invocation of that is supposed to invoke, either.
And I don’t think you folks know much about journalism. If a story doesn’t meet your preconceived notions, you start spewing crap. That’s as bad as Limbaugh.
Geezer – It was a simple question. Where’d she say that? Did she write it anywhere on Grapevine?
It appears to be a Bill Ayers reference. No, really.
I don’t know if she ever wrote it. If you know so much about journalism, pick up the freaking phone and ask her. I heard it from her own lips.
That was not journalism, that was a smear job invoking “ringers” and “the last lingering protesters from the Sixties” intended to marginalize the Dean movement that was going on at the time, but set that aside.
Cohen also never reported the objective truth about Mike Castle’s voting record during Bush. To me that was the much greater sin and one that points toward who was paying her.
Rarely, outside the world of ditto-heads, have I seen such institutionalized vileness.
Cohen was an excellent journalist for nearly three decades at The News Journal, where she was one of the leading advocates for unionization of the news staff in 1990, a stand for which she was, like many others, repeatedly punished for the rest of her career at the paper.
John Atkins lost his job due to Delaware Grapevine. No one else – least this site – pushed, probed and dug into the story of his nocturnal indiscretion. Thanks to Cohen, it mushroomed into a scandal that the House of Representatives could no longer ignore.
Politicians of all parties – Castle, Frawley, Toner, Farley, Schneider, Marshall, Carper, Holloway, Oberle, Petrilli, Sharp – learned that Cohen covers a story like a mountain lion. You don’t like Cohen? You probably wouldn’t have liked Moyed, either.
She was one of the few hounds covering the second term of the du Pont administration critically. Ask Rita Justice or Richard Cordrey about Celia Cohen’s coverage some time.
So she’s also friendly with the folks she covers. So is Jason Stark. (So were Cy Liberman and Jim Miller.) High-level journalists know how to be civil and familiar with their sources, then when the situation requires, let them have it in print.
The state’s knowledge base is poorer without Cohen’s reporting.
Cassandra – Yeah, I know about the Days of Rage. That’s where they said 25,000 people would show up, and 350 did. So it was kind of like Jason’s beloved Howard Dean phenomenon.
Geezer – That’s nice. I’m still asking for any public statement to that effect. You and Jason argue that it’s a fairly widely-known fact. I’m asking what evidence you have to that effect.
John Atkins lost his job due to Delaware Grapevine.
Thanks JM for poiting out the only journalism Cohen did under the Grapevine masthead.
Everything else was hagiography and you know it.
This is what Celia says those Dean supporters looked like.
JM –
Furthermore, I know you agree with Cohen that politics is just a fun soap opera in which people you admire like tom Carper strut and preen on the public stage, but her “reporting” during the Bush years, her inability to be a journalist and not a courtesan had a actual negative impact on t he world.
So stick my vileness up your ass.
Actually anon, LG got the reference. It certainly wasn’t about the number of people who showed up (which now makes the second assignment of meaning you’ve given that phrase). And Cohen certainly knew exactly what that reference would invoke — tired radical hippies.
If that is what passes for serious reporting, then you can have it.
I dunno. I liked the Grapevine except that it did not allow comments, which was a big flaw. And I detested her cutesy “It is the little things that make politics tick.” It wasn’t all hagiography, but she had her point-of-view – don’t we all?
In regards to funding, was she drawing a salary to write the Grapevine? If she was and didn’t disclose it, that’s her bad. But just putting up a blog website is cheap – almost anyone can self-fund that, which is what I assumed she did.
As with beauty, it’s in the eyes of the beholders.
If you go around thinking you’re being persecuted, everyone is a persecutor.
‘Nuff said. John Manifold has it dead-on.
Jason wouldn’t know common courtesy and politeness if it bit him on the vileness.
I don’t know where this notion that liars and frauds are supposed to be treated with common courtesy and politeness arose.
BS on John Manifold, too. If everyone who got involved with the union movement suffered for it, why is Merritt Wallick still there?
As I said, anon, when she was asked about it, repeatedly, she said she was being paid but refused to reveal who was paying her. I don’t care how widely known it is.
Just because people suffered doesn’t mean they were forced out or left.
Okay. A few hours has passed so I’m chilled out now. But the idea that Cohen was some kind of journalists pushes my buttons like a monkey in a space suit.
Maybe I do give her a disproportionate amount of shit, but my arms are too short to box with CNN. This country needed the 4th estate to step up, just like it needed it’s elected Democrats and moderate Republicans to call Bullshit on Bush and his whacked out agenda.
They didn’t and look at the shitmess we are in now.
I agree with Geek’s post 100%.
Cohen’s job was not to cover DC. She covered Wilmington, Dover and sometimes Georgetown. Not many have done it better over the last few decades.
She covered Castle didn’t she? She said he was a “moderate” while he voted for 95% of the Bush agenda didn’t she?
Try to keep up.
‘Bulo considers Celia Cohen to have been a decent chronicler of Delaware politics as viewed through the prism of the Delaware Way. She was blinded by the luminescence of that glowing duPont logo, and that was her principal shortcoming.
He believes that she relied excessively on a very small group of sources. She is certainly not the only journalist to fall victim to that fate. Several of her successors have parlayed the same work ethic into jobs as political propagandists for the State Senate, House of Representatives, and executive agencies. To her credit, Celia never took that route.
Delaware Grapevine served a useful purpose in its early days, but the sources upon whom Celia relied grew further removed from the fray over the years.
The Beast Who Slumbers believes that reviving Grapevine would merely be an exercise in nostalgia. However, if enough people feel nostalgic, more power to them.
Sheesh, now Protack has me rethinking my whole argument…
“Just because people suffered doesn’t mean they were forced out or left.”
CC cooked her goose at TNJ well after the union drive, during a previous purge of veteran reporters with 15-20 years of experience (previous to the most recent one, that is). She managed to tick off some of her colleagues with stuff she pulled in trying to save her job. I won’t go into details, because I’ve never heard her side of the story, but you should ask her erstwhile colleagues — several of whom she has treated rather shabbily — about her. You won’t hear many of the hosannas you see above.
She was basically Delaware’s version of Bob Woodward, trading gentle treatment for access. If you love Woodward’s reporting — more like chronicling, really — then CC is the one for you.
Protack agreeing with me would make me question my very existence. It would cast me into a pit of self despair so deep that there could be no escape.
Does Geezer write from experience in the NJ newsroom? Recent or less so?
…trading gentle treatment for access….wha?
Geezer passes along what he heard in a bar.