Question for those who are journalists....

Vic: It's an anonymous message board. It has some great stuff, and some lousy stuff, but it's still just an anonymous message board. No one is required to visit or post or laugh or argue or even register. There are plenty of other places on the web for reliable discussion and information, although there's plenty of that here as well.

You take it for what it's worth.

That said, the Journalism board is fairly venom-free, and most of the grammar is pretty decent over there, with very few Somalians or hot celebrities (other than whitlock). I know many people around the biz click over there without ever coming over to the slums Everything Else boards. Maybe that's a better locale for you....?

 

Anonymity breeds idiocy.

 

I know what you mean. I say that every time I see Chris Berman, Stu Scott and Screamin A. Smith.

Seriously, yeah, there's venom in some debates. I would argue that if you didn't see it on message boards, however, the venom would appear in other forms. You're not always going to agree with coaches and prep parents. You're not always going to agree with what some might say about you while you're in the pressbox, doing your job. But you continue to function, work through it and move on.

These threads, they're spouting points. You can't always say what you want to that coach or parent -- editors love to instruct employees to use "neutral words" in debates so as not to offend -- and that tension builds. You don't want to carry your work home with you and make others miserable, but hey, you can make other anonymous people on SportsJournalists.com miserable (like myself, for example) by flinging rocks in threads. And so it goes.

I wouldn't put too much into the venom on some threads. It might look bad, but in the end, I don't think anyone puts too much stock into what some hacks say behind some pseudo name online.

 

Hopefully.

 

You should hear the things journalists say at work.

 

But they're talking to Boots, so it's perfectly legit.

 

I would have said that this thread will not end well, but I guess it's already ending badly.

 

Hey, it'd been around 9 months since we had one of these threads... we were overdue.

 

Vic,

There's no proven way to class up the place - we've tried.

When I think of the handful of trolls and instigators - 75% of them aren't journos. But I would never want to make it "journos only" because some of the best contributors aren't.

Best you can do is hang out primarily on the Journalism Board.

Side note: Unfortunately, Elliotte quit posting awhile ago.

 

Lugs: Elliotte still posts occasionally, when he sees I'm not online has something to say.

 

;D Oh I'm so glad!

 

IJAG is saving her pennies for a return trip to Toronto.