How completely irresponsible. Taking away all the insaneness of exposing a fairly well kept secret from the people that didn't need to know about it in the first place, three months after the fact - this "reporter" still printed a story after being specifically asked not to. She also posted the address of the location... No matter what your opinion of the barn, the parties, "the speakeasies" whatever, what she did was still wrong, no matter what this story had been about.
Good Job. Way to kill one of the few cool places that is not over run by obnoxious non-tipping UGA undergrads. The barn was like a second home to many of us in the service industry after a long night of serving non-tipping Greeks and hearing the same lame stories again and again. It was our place that a lot of us used to get away from most of you. Maybe that's why so many of you never heard of it.
Why would you run a full page article promoting an underground party spot?
Sure lots of folks new about it, but thousands upon thousands more knew about it right after your article broadcasted it across campus and town. Obviously the wrong people read this article as the barn was immediately shut down by the county shortly afterwords. Do the people at the Red and Black have something against the people who threw these barn parties or did ya'll just absent mindedly overlook the potential repercussions of this very "loud" article. I can't believe how the writer of this article would go so far to even promote the "rumors of a New Year's Eve Party." Thanks for helping spoil a good thing......Idiots......
Way to ruin an overall great place to have a good time, Michelle Floyd. Thanks to this article, the end of the Barn is NOW, and thanks to you, the rumor of the New Year's party is now most definitely false. Had you ever been to the Barn? If so, did you realize upon writing this article how damaging it could be? You are a deceitful journalist, bottom line.
thank you for allowing your travesty of a newspaper(ha) to needlessly expose the barn.. what exactly was the point of that article, anyway? couldn't find anything philanthropic enough to write about d.j shockley for the front page? nice job. way to get the big scoop, killer.
This article had little or nothing to do with "the barn" parties being shut down. I discovered that the barn parties were occurring in late summer '05. I proceeded to end the parties and secure my property for future projects. No parties have taken place in "the Barn" since September. It is locked and I am the only one with the key. To clarify, the reason "the barn" was declared unsafe by ACC is miscommunication over the necessity for a building permit. Since recent modifications to the building do not necessitate a building permit, one was not acquired. The statement in one of these emails as to a bathroom installation is incorrect.
Speaking of misinformation brings me to this point: when writing such an article, it would have behooved the writer to contact the owner, Neal Fountain. This alone, could have eliminated some of the confusion and wasted time involving the article and the facts associated with the facility.
The Barn was shut down because it was unsafe and not following the law, not because of the article. If people got hurt while at the place, they could have gotten in a lot more trouble. Police already knew about the place before it was written. Other outlets have written about it before.
Thanks for ruining a good thing with your article on the "mysterious afterparty hotspot". Not only did your article get the barn condemned by the county, it is going to cause people involved to now loose a lot of money. I think an apology should be offered by the red and black for your inconsiderate journalism.
I can certainly see how so many people would be upset about losing such a special place that they hold near and dear to their hearts. However, while I don't identify with that moron Brad Clontz's immature and sarcastic comments, I do have to applaud Michelle for her journalistic integrity.
She contacted "rv" regarding the article and "rv" simply put her off. I think Michelle showed from real investigative journalistic talents in finding this information. If Michelle had cracked the code to a secret place where the football team and cheerleaders were having big throwdowns, we'd all applaud and cheer and condemn the football team.
Instead, people are upset because Michelle outsmarted them.
"Pond" (is that even a real name or what his parole officer calls him?) is obviously upset but he loses credibility when he starts using terms like "non-tipping UGA undergrads" to refer to the Greek community.
Pond, for years the R&B has been accused of an anti-Greek bias. In fact, the majority of the R&B employees are people that are outside the spectrum of what I would call your average UGA undergrad. They are the type of people you would find at "The Barn". The wouldn't fit in completely, because they aren't true "townies". But they try and hysterically fail because they are rejected by not only the Greeks but by the local freaks as well.
Anyway, the R&B doesn't have anything against the people that run "The Barn". However, if the people that were in charge had cooperated with Michelle a little more, they might have found an article more to their satisfaction. As such, Michelle had to use her talents to get information on "The Barn" to include its location and she succeeded mightily.
I applaud her for that and I laugh at you people that claim you "lost" something. You tried so hard to conceal a secret that it's no longer yours. What a good lesson to learn.
By running this article, you've taken away much more than just a cool party spot. It was irresponsible, especially after you were told not to and the reasons behind. I am not even sure why it was such a major concern for the red & black to get the "scoop" about the barn, but congratulations for bringing it to an end.
Will you guys find and publish a picture of Ted K. so we can make sure he never has a drink or enters a club in Athens again? I think we can pull together and do this thing...
A reaction to Brad Clontz's comment- had you ever been to the Barn? If so, you would know that the gatherings there are no type of "speakeasy"; it was a place that, like Pond said, many people that have to deal with ignorant people like you all night at work can go to have a good time. The Barn is an unfinished BARN. It isn't an unsafe place to be, as many, many, MANY people will tell you, and they weren't illegal until this dumb article was written. You don't know what you're talking about.
Thanks Michelle. It's nice to see you keep your word so well. "...However, we will not mention the location AT ALL -- not even a nearby street. And we will not say when the next show is..."
Wow. The guys from The Barn are so mature. If they are going to put my personal e-mails to them on their web site, they can at least include the entire thing and all of them. And all of the ones from themselves (including the one saying they understood and the other one that included the threat one made to me). But no, they can't make themselves look bad. Now, all of the fans of The Barn look down on The R&B, when really we were just writing a fun article. Plus, we are not the first ones to publish their address. At least Flagpole and athensmusic.com has, and police already know about it too. We didn't uncover some big secret. The Barn has 2 web sites and make flyers of their shows. And all of the bands that play there talk about it too. If they were following the rules, this would have been a cool article. But no, they were holding parties in an unsafe facility. Yah, they must really love their company. In the end, this did a good public service. If they get their act together, maybe they can open up a place that's safe to their attendees.
Is it Michelle Floyd's "integrity" that straight-faced lied to the people running the Barn? Why is it such a problem if someone doesn't want an article written about them? And why do people like the above "Frank J" applaud such deceitful behavior? I know nothing about journalism and the means in which writers will take to get their information, but Michelle's tactics were not only unprofessional, but immoral.
Speaking of integrity, do all reporters print what their sources specifically ask for them not to? I mean haven't reporters gone to jail in order to not reveal their scores or what their sources told them? BTW Frank you are right, Pond is not my real name only because I do know some of the folks at the R&B pretty well since I use to do the news at WUOG. Where I learned if you are doing a story and the person you are interviewing asks you not the mention something, you don't mention it. That is journalistic integrity. Otherwise what source is ever going to trust you after that? The parties at the barn weren't some crazy orgy, it was just a chance for a lot of people who work downtown to go unwind and have some fun away from the "non-tipping" undergrads. I'm sorry that my comments lost credibility with you but it seems that majority here agree with them. Speaking of which if you happen to see my parole officer tell him I said "hi."
Have a good one, and
Tip your bartenders
Just so everyone knows, the Barn was deemed "UNSAFE" because our landlord installed a bathroom in it without a Building Permit. This is just the legal tool the Gov't was able to use to shut down the parties, kind of like busting Al Capone for tax evasion. The Structure is completely safe, as it used to store tons & tons of building supplies for Habitat for Humanity. Yes, we did have a website and flyers for the bigger shows, but there is a big difference between friends telling friends about the website, and a newspaper article telling thousands of countless strangers about it. Michelle says we should have gotten our act together and made the Barn legal, but hello? You can't have business establishments in Athens that have dancing & alcohol after 2am. And this is a fascist, yes I said it, fascist law that exists in this little bible-belt college town. If America is so damn free, why can't I get my freak on after 2am ?? I'm just disappointed that since Michelle and crew obviously liked the Barn and what it stood for, why they just couldn't help protect it for the community to enjoy, instead of exposing it for everyone to see.
I think that one of the things that makes me most irritated by this article is that it is not written as an expose on an unsafe flop house. The article reads as a pretty fluffy piece that examines The Barn as a venue, not a safety hazard. It's not like Floyd broke the story of the century here. As she herself has said, there were flyers for Barn parties all over town, you just had to look. This article is too flimsy to be called investigative. It might have begun innocently enough, and if the Red & Black was trying to increase its coverage of the Athens social/music scene that doesn't include the area between Pulaski and Thomas, then that's super. It's would be nice to see the musicians on the fringe get more attention. However, it seems like what happened, at least in my opinion, was that Floyd and Co. got really irritated by the fact that Vinal wouldn't talk and decided to spite him. "Afterparty hot spot still mysterious"? There's no mystery here, Nancy Drew: you've told us what happens at The Barn, i.e. parties and shows, and even where it's located (despite the fact that Floyd said she wouldn't disclose the location in email correspondence with Vinal). What's there left to tell? In light of the way the article came together and the information disclosed here, that headline just comes off nasty.
I certainly don't feel like I lost anything by The Barn being closed, but Floyd tries to paint herself as a public servant with her comment, as if she might have saved people from danger. Maybe she helped to--we'll never know--but I don't believe that was her intent. I don't know why this article ran. I'm a journalism grad, and I get very defensive about the importance of the media to our society. As journalists, we serve the public: we inform, we warn, we expose, we entertain. This article accomplishes none of those things. No one is served by this: as I said before, the article isn't meant to tell us how The Barn is unsafe; and if Floyd meant to give us a hot tip on where to hang out or a look into one of the alternative "scenes" around town, well, she effectively squashed that mission by publicizing it so widely and helping to get it shut down.
Reading the email correspondence is troubling: though Floyd claims what is posted on Athens101 is incomplete and puts her in a bad light, it becomes obvious that the story was rushed, and probably pushed through (maybe without enough consideration) by a need to fill space and meet deadline: "I haven't heard back from anybody, and my deadline is Sunday, so I'm getting worried. I have to tell my editor if I'm writing the article or not," Floyd wrote in an email, according to The Barn Folk.
I've been there, Floyd and Tanner. But rushing a story is something that an editor needs to take a lot of care in doing, because people can make mistakes (I'm not talking factual here, I'm talking about ethical issues) and the pressure to fill a hole can cloud your judgment.
Aside from the harm that some people say it caused, I don't think this piece should have run. It's dull, and it doesn't live up to that standard that journalists should set for themselves: to serve the public, not take up space.
The next "Out and About" can run a feature on how the people who run the Barn are a bunch of unprofessional tools who attack journalists for fun while publishing their private correspondence.
Townies can do two things for me: stamp my right hand and make my lattes.
Ted K., Mathematics Professor, UCB 1967-8
Supermax Pen, Colorado
the barn was NOT shut down because it is unsafe. there is absolutely nothing unsafe about the structure and NO ONE HAS EVER BEEN HURT THERE!
It was shut down because the article exposed the barn to people who hate these things happening. i.e...city officials, overindulgent "Christians", campus police, and god knows who else. People who would never know about it otherwise. These people now see the barn as a threat to the student population and needed a way to stop the party.
If Michelle had actually ever been to a Barn Party, which she has not!, she would know what actually happens there....The best parties, with the best people, with the most positive atmosphere.
What made the Barn so special was the fact that so many different types of people would come and party together that would never hang out together otherwise.
and the dance parties were insane!
but Michelle knows nothing of this.
she was too busy building her HANSON Fan Page.
and if she can't figure out why that article was a really bad idea, then i feel seriously sorry for her.
she thinks it was a fun cool article, but it is here naivety that has ruined something special to this town.
The complaining about this article -- stuff that was already public knowledge -- is a little bit silly. The sense of entitlement for such an operation to run afoul of regulations isn't very mature. My two cents:
About the Barn
Adrian, law student
Athens, GA
athenian47@yahoo.com
By the way, writers do not come up with their own headlines. That's the editors' job. It really irritates me when people get mad about the headlines. I can't help that.
And second, I am not trying to act like doing a service was the purpose of this article - to put the place out of business b/c it was unsafe. I didn't even know that. But if it was, maybe the article was meant to be written. It wasn't an investigative piece; I know that. It was supposed to be a fun piece.
But the government screws things up, as we all know. And these guys at the barn do not tell the entire story, which I know. But nobody else will know and probably doesn't care anymore b/c they've already drawn their own conclusions. I know I didn't do anything wrong, so I can live with myself and sleep at night. I was fair and didn't print any false things. Everybody else just needs to get over it.
If you're sad to see the place go, take it up with the ACC government. I hate that this place had to be shut down too. It's not really my crowd, but I can appreciate it. So everybody can believe what they want about the article -- it wasn't written as a jab to get back at the people who wouldn't talk or as a try to get the place shut down. I don't know what some people think we do at the office, but we don't sit up there and think of sneaky ways to get at people. It was written as a fun feature story to highlight a place outside of the norm.
in response to ted k:
i would hope that any credible university professor would be a bit more progressive than to spout this tripe: "townies can do two things for me: stamp my right hand and make my lattes".
the idea that you were ever in a position to influence and educate impressionable minds frightens me. do you have a personal vendetta against the people who ran the barn or do you just not have any grasp on what happened? judging by your entirely juvenile and uninformed response, i'd have to guess both. regardless of flaring tempers and in light of the [civil] email correspondence between both parties, michelle floyd's decision to publish the address (not to mention the article itself) was unprofessional and unethical.
"If they were following the rules, this would have been a cool article. But no, they were holding parties in an unsafe facility. Yah, they must really love their company."
So, Michelle, you've *never* been to a party at someone's house where there were WAY too many people? You've *never* been to a party where laws were conceivably being broken? This kind of stuff happens all over town, all the time. PLEASE. Don't try to act like your article saved a bunch of people from certain death in the Barn. No matter what your intentions were, you ruined a good thing.
I'm glad to see most everybody who has commented on here acts like they know the entire story, when really they don't know anything. That's between me and the guys at The Barn. I know that I, along with any of my editors, didn't do anything wrong. The guys at The Barn know they didn't tell the entire story. If they can live with themselves, then good for them. I know nobody else really cares even if they care to share the truth now. And I'm over it. And they're over it. So everybody else should get over it. I'm sorry The Barn got shut down, but that's a problem to take to the ACC government, not The R&B. I thought our readers were smart enough to figure that out, not lacking common sense. I guess I was wrong about some of you.
As one who has spent many a night at the Barn, I must say that the only unsafe thing about it was its ability to keep me awake until sunrise.
About the 'unsafe' issue: a building can be condemned even if it is structurally sound. My own house was once deemed 'unsafe' because my neighbor hired a poorly -skilled plumber to replace his water lines. That plumber cut off a line he assumed was no longer in use without making sure it was important, causing the sewage of half the block to spill into said neighbor's yard. Yum! At this point, my house was perfectly fine, but the cesspool next door was the problem.
Whether or not this article was the direct cause of the Barn's closure, and though I don't believe that was the intention of Ms. Floyd, I think she made some poor decisions in its writing. Specifically the inclusion of an address. She was asked to leave it out, and promised to do so, and didn't we all learn when we were little that lying is wrong?? This is especially bad since it is the address of a private residence too, and I don't think Ms. Floyd would be too happy if I posted her address for all to see. I realize that the information is easily found from other sources, but only when looking for that information specifically. Ms. Floyd simply didn't think of the consequences of her actions. Hopefully this incident will make her think before she 'speaks' next time.
And to Ted K.: Whoa, boy, what an ego you have there! You must be very unhappy with your own life if you feel the need to be so condescending towards those you feel are below you. Not all townies are uneducated imbeciles; in fact, many have college degrees. We just have chosen different life paths. Remember: Server does not mean Servant. I hope the townie population never finds out what you look like. Because if they do, you may be finding a little something extra in your next latte.
It's good to see that even if we don't know the whole story, even if we don't know what we're talking about, even if we are wrong in assuming that Ms. Floyd is a deceitful journalist, even if it was just between her and "The Barn Guys"... "The Barn Guys" still don't back up this article at all! Funny how that works out.
Spring Break
anonymous871
posted 12/14/05 @ 10:43 AM EST
k
athens