Patriots blogger burns bridges

I wish I could say that I feel sorry for the Patriots, but I don't. This is what happens when the pro teams decide they want to create their own "media" with Web sites. They want writers who will embrace their fan interest in the team to do that work, not journalists. And when you hire fans instead of professionals, you'll occasionally have an instance where that fan's fantasies about how super-awesome it is to hang around the players, front office, etc., is fractured by reality. That's how you get an unprofessional malcontent on the loose like this.

You reap what you sow, dudes.

 

Excellent point.

 

The Patriots should be well beyond the point where they can feel embarrassed.

 

I'm not sure how much you know about the history of Patriots Football Weekly or Patriots.com, but, by and large, it has not hired "fans" to do the work. Most of the people there have a history of either print journalism or sports information.

Bryan Morry had been in sports information at the University of Rhode Island, then after PFW, went into radio with The Score in Providence for several years.

Mike Reiss spent several years there before going to the MetroWest Daily News and now is the Pats beat guy at the Globe. He has been ahead of the curve with the way he covers the beat and is considered by many the best on the beat.

Paul Perillo had been at the Boston Herald for a decade before coming to PFW.

Andy Hart had been in the media relations office before joining PFW. He replaced me. My name is Shane Donaldson, and I joined PFW out of college before becoming part of the full-time staff for two years. I left PFW and went to the MetroWest for a few years before leaving sports journalism.

The people involved are hardly of the fanboy variety, but there is definitely that perception. Personally, I found that perception hard to shake. At times it felt like the team viewed us as media, and the media viewed us as part of the team. During my three seasons there, we worked very hard to prove that we were a source of news, not just a mouthpiece for the organization.

It has been several years since I've been there, so I can't speak for the current climate, other than to say that the last thing either Paul or Andy would want is to be known as fanboys. I don't know Tom Casale from a hole in the wall, so I can't offer any comment on him.

 

Hoo boy: Casale is loving life with the Pats

As to patsfans.com: I was hoping that membership would come in handy someday, since I sure as heck can't use it to talk Bills smack to them ...
Feb. 2008: Who was the Boston sportswriter who was outed on PatsFans last year?
June 2007: Situation regarding Tom Casale on this forum

And dredging up the very first posts of "patriotsrule" on that board, I find a thread titled The Media, containing some props to ... Tom Casale, among others. Quite a few links to patriots.com stories, too.

What a guy.

 

Who sucks? Who doesn't? Who's mean? Who's nice?

What's a good deal at 30 percent off in the pro shop?

Just ask Tom!

 

What an absurd man. Why the hell did he capitalize "dynasty?"

I always trusted Johnson because I knew he would probably kill his mother to win a football game. Belichick is the same way, which makes him a great coach.

Really? That's what makes a good coach, dude? I'd say preparation and talent, but then again, I don't have a BLOG! so what the fuck do I know? Apparently Oedipus would've made a great coach, but that moran killed the wrong parent.

 

You might not be a fanboy, you might not want to be a fanboy ... but these teams want you to be a fanboy. And if we can't agree on that point, then I (and just about anyone else who has covered pro beats over the last decade) has to wonder whether you've had too much Kool-Aid.

 

We can disagree, that's fine. All I can talk about is my personal experience with that organization, which was that I was never told what to write or how to write it, and I was never censored.

There are many team publications that were/are downright embarrassing. I did not feel that was the case in my experience. Was that perception there? Absolutely, and I hated it.

While I was there, I felt we earned respect from others on the beat for the work we did. If you read what we did on a regular basis, it was fair and objective.

 

Again, I just read a book about Bill and the Pats dynasty and he probably wouldn't kill his mother to win a game. But he would put in 60 hours a week even on the offseason, and he has been coaching in the NFL since his early 20s.

 

Uhhh...Mustang, it's "Dynasty" with a capital D.

 

One more note. According to the friend who started the thread on our site yesterday morning, Casale's original post was edited to remove two things -- a suggestion that Wes Welker's injury is worse than reported, and this:

No, never.