December 2, 2008
D.C. Blogs Play Telephone Over Late Night Bar Hours Proposal
Yesterday afternoon, the Examiner's Leah Fabel first reported that Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham planned to introduce legislation today that would allow D.C.'s bars and restaurants to serve alcohol until 5 a.m., and to keep doors open 24-hours per day, between Jan. 17 and Jan. 21 to accommodate inauguration tourists. We then linked to it in our end of the day roundup. D.C. Wire posted its own version this morning. Then about an hour later, D.C. Shadow Representative Mike Panetta posted the following message to his Twitter feed:
DC Council extends "last call" to 5 am during inauguration week. Sounds fun, but I'll be happy to stay awake past midnight :)The Council had yet to vote on Graham's proposal, and Panetta was surely nowhere near today's legislative session since he has his own day job to attend to, but that didn't stop Famous DC from linking to Panetta's Twitter feed as a source of news about the Council's action on this legislation. Politico's gossip blog, Shenanigans, then picked up the Famous DC post, and Wonkette did the same.
The whole thing got so out of hand, Panetta was forced to take down his previous Tweet and replace it with the one above. Note to Washington bloggers for the future: Mike Panetta's Twitter feed, while a pleasure to read, is not a source of D.C. Council news.
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Note to Washington bloggers for the future: its a revolutionary idea, but how about actually communicating with your sources before "reporting" the news.
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amen, dc_chica! after reading this post over at frozen tropics, it sounds like washington's traditional media outlets could stand to do the same.
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And here I thought nobody paid attention to me :)
Seriously, I re-posted without checking and others apparently did the same. Sometimes we all need to check our sources. Sorry for any trouble it caused.
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Panetta's Twitter feed was, however, a source of DC Democratic State Committee news back during the frenzy over selection of the two add-on convention superdelegates, who ended up being council members Alexander and Thomas. His feed was cited by DemConWatch in breaking the news.
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SHABAM!
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You guys have me totally confused now.
The Washington Post article says the council approved the bill, 9 to 4.
Where did the Post find a vote tally, if the council hasn't voted yet?
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why don't we let bars serve till 5 am all year when the rest of us resident alcoholics will actually be able to enjoy it.
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Bah, didn't see the date of the dcist post. Got it.
Bars open 24 hours and serving until 5 also might help with the hotel rooms shortage that weekend what with the taking a nap in the corner until the metro opens.