He objects to Welch story

Richard Karpel, the head of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, takes issue with Matt Welch's piece on blogs in Columbia Journalism Review (recommended by me here). He doesn't object to the whole thing, just the opening passage where Welch disses alternative papers and recounts an encounter with Karpel at a hotel bar in San Francisco. In the parlance of Matt's friend Ken Layne, Karpel fact-checks his ass:

Too bad he didn't read the papers instead of just looking at them. Because the notion that alternative newspapers are all "the same" is an absurdity that could only be uttered by someone who hasn't read any of them. Does anyone who has spent fifteen minutes with, for instance, the San Francisco Bay Guardian and the Chicago Reader, have any doubt that one is from Mars and other is from Venus? Is there a New Yorker aware of The Village Voice and New York Press who doesn't know they are vastly different in both substance and style?

Of their meeting at the bar, Karpel remembers it differently:

Welch writes as if he crouched forward and put pencil to notepad when he asked the question that "put me on the spot." That's not what happened. He never identified himself as a reporter, and if he asked me a question, which I presume he did -- he never informed me that it was in the context of an interview...

Then he paraphrases me delivering fulsome praise for the rejected Independent Florida Sun. Only problem is ... I've never even seen a copy of the Independent Florida Sun, so I couldn't have said it. Maybe I was referring to comments by the two people on the admissions committee who voted to admit the paper? Who knows?

I don't have a clue who's right. Here are the links -- Welch vs. Karpel -- you decide. (Link via Cathy Seipp)

Update Thursday: Michael Hoyt, CJR's executive editor, tweaks Karpel and defends Welch in a letter to Romenesko, and a correspondent from Atlanta rebuts him.