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NY Times: Special rules for special talents.

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!, Jan 21, 2009.

  1. Joe Williams

    Joe Williams Well-Known Member

    Cumulative toll? Beyond whipping your envy into a frenzy, you mean? Sportswriters getting and using Marriott points has taken a toll on, what, newspapers' budgets, journalism or society as a whole?

    If the hotels didn't have loyalty programs, what would the excuse be then? And if Marriott let corporations use points to cannibalize business-travel lodging that is their lifeblood, people would say they're as stupid for facilitating that as newspapers are for giving away their journalism for free.

    Most writers I know do not, and would not be permitted to, stay in a Marriott property that is noticeably more expensive than some other hotel. Marriott has the full bottom two-thirds of the prince range covered, too, from regular Marriotts down to Fairfield Inns.

    It would be a far greater drain on newspaper budgets to actually pay its people for the time logged in TSA security lines, in flight delays, in lost-luggage queues and so on than it is to accept some piddly-ass points ($5-$10 worth on a given trip, if you actually project their value in future use) dropped into a staffer's account.

    Move on to real issues, please. What Maureen Dowd did, and what the NYT's permitted, ain't even in the same time zone as the Marriott debate.
     
  2. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Writers are taking newspapers down with unnecessary travel, big expense accounts and hoarding Marriot Points is just as stupid as the theory the UAW workers are the problem in the auto industry.
     
  3. Joe Williams

    Joe Williams Well-Known Member

    No, more stupid, cranberry. Because with the auto workers, you can at least break down the portion of every new car sold that has to fund too-early retirements and relatively high-grade retiree health benefits.

    The points programs are entirely external to the businesses in crisis. If a newspaper stops traveling, no one gets the controversial Marriott points. Fine. How will that work out for them all?
     
  4. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    Greed is the problem in the auto industry. Some have more than others. But whoever has it, contributes.
     
  5. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    I'd suggest humbly that the people at the bottom isn't the place to start looking for greed because they're obviously not as good at it.
     
  6. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    It's not the points themselves so much as the motivation behind them - the idea that there a number of sportswriters in the business still unwilling to change their costly habits (whatever they may be) and editors unwilling to change it for them.

    Dowd's a conversational piece, but sportswriting has more than its share of offenders. If you don't think that, well, OK.
     
  7. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    Greed is a compulsion, not a skill. I've known a lot of greedy poor people and selfless rich people. And vice versa.

    At any rate, I know my posts on this matter piss people off. Intended to. Time to stop making this about the "other."
     
  8. funky_mountain

    funky_mountain Active Member

    here is a partial answer (while not addressing your idea specifically, from a post made by hankschu on the 'travel cutbacks' thread on the j-topics board:

    from hankschu:
     
  9. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member


    There are levels of so-called greed, here. No way I would term looking to avoid the Motel 6 fate, and/or being coerced into making a two-hour drive home following an event (arriving back in your own bed at 4 AM) as "greed". No. Way.
     
  10. Joe Williams

    Joe Williams Well-Known Member

    It's wrong for office workers to go home with staplers and paper clips in their briefcases, too. I'd be more worked up -- if I were you -- over all the bogus "cab rides" and uneaten, unordered "meals" that are filed for on expense accounts than I would the perfectly legitimate hotel and airline loyalty programs.

    (Oops, did I say something I shouldn't have? :-X ;D )
     
  11. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member



    . . . not to mention the epic double-dip fraud . . . like the columnist of my acquaintance who has been known to ask same-paper companions to "pay their fair share" of a dinner out, in cash -- before putting the whole thing in, on his exies. Scumbucket.
     
  12. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Seriously, I've seen too many people ruin their careers -- some even get fired -- for fudging on expense accounts. It's not worth the extra six dollars, people.
     
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