Steve....I've always been curious because I have been one of the ones following your blog for awhile. Did you ever tell us why you stopped working the gig over at Crime Library? You say you weren't always happy about other things but I just remember you writing for them and then not writing for them but I never really remember hearing why.

It could be one of those things that you didn't discuss (don't want to burn bridges and all, I'm sure) but, now, I'd kind of like your take on why you think Crime Library has run it's course. With more and more media moving towards the internet, with true crime becoming a bigger and bigger draw among the general population story wise, why would they shut down? I always really liked the site and I will miss it a bit.
PenniesFromHeaven | 12.21.07 - 10:50 am | #

They no longer wanted submissions from me essentially because the editor felt (as I understood it) that my blog was a competing interest.

I was flummoxed by that, since my traffic, while good for a weblog, never came anywhere near the kind of traffic Crime Library had. A minivan (my Wordpress-published blogs) couldn't really compete with a city bus (CrimeLibrary) for passenger capacity (readers).

I was also often confused as to what they did and did not want, story-wise. There were certain types of true crime stories that were more desired than others -- for a long time, missing persons cases involving young women were highly prized. So when a particularly interesting story about a family murdered in California came my way and I had a lot on it, I blogged about it instead, because my understanding at the time was that it wasn't exactly what my editor was looking for (those expectations changes constantly, btw).

I was wrong. This came after a TV appearance where even though I'd emphasized to the producer who booked me that I wrote for the Crime Library, the TV folks decided to use my own blog's address on the chyron, anyway. My editor felt this was intentional on my part, no matter what I said. I will be the first to admit to being intentionally self-promoting at times, but that wasn't one of those times.

Past that, I really haven't seen fit to discuss it any further. Other issues that came up after I was no longer writing for CL (I felt my new work was still being used, in a way, but I was no longer being paid for it) I actually have blogged about, but after coming to an agreement with one of the people with whom I had those issues, I took those blog entries offline -- issue closed.

I've put all of that behind me at this point -- hence the lack of schadenfreude. I imagine that had this happened a year or so ago, I would have been a little tickled, but now I think it's a shame. I'm feeling for the writers and other staff. I mean, David was doing a lot of work for CL, and the photo editor, Mike Wild, had been a stalwart on the site for years. And then there's the truly hard-working folks who ran the associated message boards. Court TV and Crime Library message boards were real bears to administrate and moderate, from what I knew. And they all have to deal with losing that source of income (for some of them, basically full-time pay) right around Christmas and New Year's. That stinks.
Steve Huff | Homepage | 12.21.07 - 11:24 am | #

Pennies, I didn't answer the "my take" part -- I honestly don't think CL was ever able to really properly take on current, breaking news.

They were hampered by their sister publications' popularity, for one thing -- The Smoking Gun is hugely popular and profitable, for instance.

Additionally, CL started as more of a compendium of true crime tales -- like mini-true-crime books online. The name "library" pretty much says it all. A lot of people, even after CL had been posting new, current articles for years, still thought of it as an "archival," static site.

There were some hidebound publishing conventions at work, too, that really didn't translate well into a world where you can truly break news and get lots of readers fast through Google News. Publishing time each day was around 11 a.m., regardless, and sometimes there were no new articles on the weekend. It wasn't like this blog, where I can write it, click publish, and it's online and ready to be indexed by a search engines in minutes. I had breaking news, new developments in new cases on several occasions 12-24 hours in advance of the cable news networks and the AP, but it wasn't online until after someone else got hold of the info -- so it looked like the other person got the scoop, NOT Crime Library. I tried to argue for some method of immediate publication, but they wouldn't hear of it. They also made a mistake in ultimately rejecting any public acknowledgment of blogs, even though most crime bloggers have been aware of the IP addresses of Crime Library staff in our stats for some time now.

Really, though -- I just don't think this is about what may have been lacking for CL as much as it is about Court TV's switch to TruTV. That is, I don't think there was a "fatal" flaw in what the Crime Library did. This is about "corporate" decisions, pure and simple. I imagine the abandoning of the site has more to do with pageviews compared with other properties and potential advertising revenue.
Steve Huff | Homepage | 12.21.07 - 11:39 am | #

I think Steve is right. Crime Library is going because CourtTv is going. CourtTv changing to TruTv is a big mistake that I'm not happy about. They want to draw mid-aged male viewers with action shows. There are plenty of those on tv already and only one CourtTV.
Colette | 12.21.07 - 1:18 pm | #

They seem to forget that the majority of fans of true crime accounts are female, don't they? Or do they care?
Steve Huff | Homepage | 12.21.07 - 3:12 pm | #

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

It's very interesting to see how these places work behind the scenes. It seems a very cutthroat world. Though, when I think about it, I'm in a non glamorous, boring field and even THAT'S cutthroat. It's the nature of the game, I suppose. Which isn't to say there aren't good people out there. Just that the machine gets in the way of that many times. That, and litigation ad nauseum.

What's interesting to me about your story is that, my understanding is they found you through your blog. There had to be some understanding on their part that, at times, there might be a muddling of the two. Especially, in the beginning before clear expectations were determined. Mistakes happen. Seems like it could have been a mutually beneficial situation for both of you even if you did duplicate on occasion. I'm sure people found CL through you and you through CL.
Though, again, what what can be

It is really too bad about the tv appearance them not believing it was intentional. Those are the hardest things to get over in my opinion. Heck, if you do something on purpose and know you did it, you can live with it if you get caught. But when you truly haven't done something, it's way harder to stomach the fallout.

In this age of instant information, I can totally see how frustrating it would be to work with a group that shuts down on the weekends, though. I did notice that with CL and it was definitely one of it's big drawbacks. For someone like yourself, who works so hard to break stories, it would seem that would have been very hard to resolve yourself to for too long. Sounds trite but sometimes things do really happen for the best.

I'm no fan of the TruTv plan. Like Colette says, there already seems to be a glut of channels doing the male action thing. Spike TV anyone?
PenniesFromHeaven | 12.21.07 - 3:45 pm | #

Wow - Crimelibrary too eh ? At least that has value as an archival site.

Courttvnews.com is going dark as well, no additional news after December 31st. Other than Mr. Huff here I have no idea where to get my fix of this stuff anymore.

I don't get it, really. I was bombarded with ads as I read the site, it's hard to imagine it as a money-loser. It must just be a casualty of corporate restructuring. And it's stupid too, because if they cut me off from information, how am I going to know what to look out for on this new Tru TV thing ?

I'm really disappointed and angry; mad enough to quit writing about games and vent about it here.
MrrX | Homepage | 12.21.07 - 5:02 pm | #

Gosh! What a loss! I used Crime Library as an archive and read many well-written and well-researched articles there. Crime Library had the best article I ever read about Richard Speck. That's really too bad! I don't think blogs nor the Smoking Gun can fill their niche.
Emily Booth | 12.21.07 - 5:55 pm | #

I am definitely going to miss the crimelibrary, dangit. It has recently been the only "true crime" type site I've been able to access at the DOJ that hasn't become blocked. They've recently blocked your site too, Steve. As long as it remains up with the archival information at least I'll have something still to read during my lunch break.
PJ | 12.21.07 - 7:54 pm | #