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

Starman,

I must ask, is there any team from Michigan you like? Central? Eastern? Spring Arbor?

 

Kettering.

 

Serious question, do they even have athletics?

 

Oh, I've never had any big problems with the Choppin' Lumberjacks of Alpena Community College.

 

Shoot, that's basically Canada.

 

There are a few exceptions, and Ann Arbor used to be one, but most college town papers are complete homer rags where anything negative written about the local school makes the fanboys freak the fuck out. Most of it is stuff that wouldn't raise an eyebrow if written by a much bigger paper.

 

Come on, man, it's not like there hasn't been plenty of opportunity that I've passed up, at least with MSU. My comments about Michigan State's annual posse roundups have been directed at Dantonio and what seems like a massive double standard in the local media. No one even knew about Roderick Jenrette's almost identical past--except his last offense came days before he enrolled at Michigan State, not years--until he was prominently featured in East Lansing courtrooms.

No one really knows anything about Demar Dorsey. I don't. No one in the local media does. But since the vast majority of juvenile offenders don't re-offend it seems like you should give the kid a chance.

As for the site: I can't say that a lot of dumb stuff hasn't been posted on the message boards, but there's only so much you can do without devoting vast slabs of your life to policing other people's opinions. I do delete personal shots at college athletes whenever I see them. It's even in the FAQ. I've tried to institute an environment where dumb stuff is results in at least some consequence, even if it's imaginary points. There's pushback from the community when that happens, and that's about all you can do.

You're also drawing a false equivalence with that, though. It's not like I don't roll my eyes at and lower my opinion of a random message board poster who drops "Spartina" or makes it personal with Morgan Trent or has a typical 14-year-old's worldview. wolverine318 doesn't have to care, though. Beatwriters do, or should.

 

Well, yeah, it's in Michigan.