AnnArbor.com apologizes for reporter's comment during live chat

Aren't there beat writers who write columns? Of course some I've seen are written by spineless hacks who don't want to ruffle feathers.

 

They'll censure their own reporter but do nothing about the whacked-out comments from readers on the website. Tools.

 

Quick update: Dave filed several pieces from the first day of U-M spring football practice yesterday.

And, if I offended with the Kool-Aid comment, I apologize. That wasn't the goal. The point was very simply that there are many U-M fanbois out there who either A. Think DickRod can do no wrong, even though he's going to land the program on probation or B. Are pissed that DickRod has had back-to-back losing seasons and broke the bowl streak that started in 1975. The latter group, pardon the pun, is acting like a group of wounded, cornered wolverines.

 

I like Birkett (got it right this time). I read his work daily. I just think he didn't have to go there.

 

I'm kind of on the side of if you don't want people cracking on you, don't burgle. Would have been funny if Birkett apologized and said that he didn't want of offend the dozens of Michigan players who didn't get charged with felonies.

 

Burgle. Great word.

 

It's a dick move to make a joke at a 17-year-old kid's expense. This isn't Terrell Owens here. It's a kid who screwed up when he was 15 and has been clean for two years. There's a thread *today* laughing at some dip who doesn't understand the imperative to be stoic and objective...
http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/76733/
...and in this one people are claiming that a Michigan beatwriter for an Ann Arbor paper should feel free to play Jim Rome. Sorry. It's one or the other. But go ahead and circle those wagons while simultaneously taunting "fanbois" for doing the same thing.

 

You're thinking of Michigan State, which may have 12 or 14 players on its 100+-player roster who have not yet been charged with felonies. But the spring is still young.

 

I thought Birkett's comment was funny.

 

I'd write a $50 check for Birkett's defense fund before I'd pay a nickel toward Dorsey's lawyers in criminal court.

 

So you know the site's EIC too?

 

Full disclosure: Brian Cook runs a Michigan fanboi site (for those that don't know).

And Jim's points are spot on.