Denver Post writer goes postal on ESPN

[Hustle]

That dude needs some valium.

Is it that hard to take 24 hours and present a coherent argument instead of screaming and name-calling?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the point of blogging supposed to be about the here-and-now and not let's wait until tomorrow and see if I've cooled down? If this was a column for the paper I would expect it to be more coherent. As a blog I think it captured his emotions pretty well.
That said, even 15 minutes of forethought might have served him better. Write it all out, take a break, go have a smoke and then see if you still want to post it.

It depends on what you want to do with your blog. If you want to scream and shout, then yeah, go for it.

I look at blogging as my chance to do write what others aren't. Granted, I don't always have enough time to make that happen, but that's the goal.

 

[Bob Cook]

This is embarrassing -- for the writer. Of all people, he calls out Ed Werder, Rachel Nichols, Chris Mortensen and Marc Stein? What do they all have in common, other than working for ESPN? Oh, that's right, they were NEWSPAPER reporters! At major newspapers, too, perhaps more major than the Denver Post.

Plus, way to insult your readers by calling them "the middle management drones out there in the workplace that pass their time in boredom reading your tired act." Sure, he was referring to Simmons' readers, but this guy's blog is going for the same demographic, whether he cares to admit it.

And "truth will win out?" Gag. That's right, everyone is going to forget that stupid Internet and that stupid ESPN and go back to newpapers where they belong. Here comes Georgie Amberson Minifer laughing about Eugene Morgan's dirty ol' motorcar again.

There are plenty of legitimate rips about ESPN and its personalities, but, man, this blog entry attacks this like Michael Jordan swinging at a Double-A curveball.

 

[Billy Pritchard]

That dude needs some valium.

Is it that hard to take 24 hours and present a coherent argument instead of screaming and name-calling?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the point of blogging supposed to be about the here-and-now and not let's wait until tomorrow and see if I've cooled down? If this was a column for the paper I would expect it to be more coherent. As a blog I think it captured his emotions pretty well.
That said, even 15 minutes of forethought might have served him better. Write it all out, take a break, go have a smoke and then see if you still want to post it.

It depends on what you want to do with your blog. If you want to scream and shout, then yeah, go for it.

I look at blogging as my chance to do write what others aren't. Granted, I don't always have enough time to make that happen, but that's the goal.

I wish that was the case for me. I'm just going by what I've been told by my bosses about what they want from us as bloggers, so I'm sure they would have loved this blog. But they'll be disappointed if they expect me to do something similar.

 

[Cousin Jeffrey]

"Oh, and here’s a little shout out to guys like the Bill Simmonses of the world - guys who never did the real work of journalism but just love to sit from their on-high funnyman thrones and crack wise on the doings of those who could: Hey, I’m from New England - I AM YOUR DEMOGRAPHIC - and I’m even tired of your act. Thanks, Bill, for the 113th “column” on a Vegas trip last weekend. Hench, J-Bug, the line at McCarran, Seventh Circle of Hell, oh, it’s all so fresh and funny, my man. Yes it was, the first 23 times I read it. Go out and hang by Jorge Posada’s locker, as I did tonight, and ask why he stranded the bases loaded in the eighth inning to cost the Yankees a game. Then, come and lecture me about the newspaper business and how it’s all so tired. If I didn’t do what I did tonight, you wouldn’t be able to do what you will do today, which is sit in your underwear, click on a story that a real journalist wrote, and then pass judgment to all the middle management drones out there in the workplace that pass their time in boredom reading your tired act."

Hey, I respect J Bug's opinion. Leave him out of this.

 

[tapintoamerica]

This could have been a persuasive entry, but it collapsed under the weight of its indignation. Among the problems: the junior-high reference to sticking something where there is seldom sunlight; broad-brush accusations -- in this case of taking credit for breaking news -- without specific examples to back them up; and personal attacks. If Rachel Nichols reports something as soon as she can, she's not at fault if a TV producer places "ESPN's Rachel Nichols reports that Pacman Jones will be charged with two felonies" as a crawl at the bottom of the screen. That's a marketing decision for which the field reporter is not at fault.

 

[JR]

Also, as for this gentleman's books (with the caveat that I doubt I'll ever have the opportunity to write the sports-related books I would like to do): was Avalanche-Red Wings the most passionate sports rivalry of its era?
I can't think of another right now; that's why I'm asking. And as for both teams winning the ultimate prize, and blood being on the ice, I can't argue it.

The Avs-Red Wings rivalry has been a good one, but didn't ESPN help make that a rivalry? [/ducking]

That rivalry has been dead for some time.

I think that this one was an actual hatefest after that puke Claude Lemieux rearranged Chris Draper's face. Nothing staged. Those guys hated each other.

Dater should have invoved the 24 hour rule, calmed down and then written it.

 

[sportsed]

This is embarrassing -- for the writer. Of all people, he calls out Ed Werder, Rachel Nichols, Chris Mortensen and Marc Stein? What do they all have in common, other than working for ESPN? Oh, that's right, they were NEWSPAPER reporters! At major newspapers, too, perhaps more major than the Denver Post.

Couldn't agree more that Dater picked the wrong people to call out when he named Werder, Nichols, Mort and Stein. That's just incredible. There isn't a sports editor in the country who wouldn't make room for those four on a newspaper's staff, the Denver Post among them.

 

[Claws for Concern]

This is embarrassing -- for the writer. Of all people, he calls out Ed Werder, Rachel Nichols, Chris Mortensen and Marc Stein? What do they all have in common, other than working for ESPN? Oh, that's right, they were NEWSPAPER reporters! At major newspapers, too, perhaps more major than the Denver Post.

Couldn't agree more that Dater picked the wrong people to call out when he named Werder, Nichols, Mort and Stein. That's just incredible. There isn't a sports editor in the country who wouldn't make room for those four on a newspaper's staff, the Denver Post among them.

Too bad the Post is cutting like all the rest of Lean Dean's offerings to "make room" for them or anyone else.

 

[Bristol Insider]

The entry seems to have disappeared ...

 

[for_the_hunt]

Yeah ... does anyone know where the rest of us can read this now?
Anybody copy-and-paste before the deletion?

 

[VJ]

LOL @ him calling out Rachel Nichols. Umm she used to work for the Post... no, not the Denver Post — the big boy Post.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

The moral to the story is don't drink and blog...

 

[beefncheddar]

Damn. Figured I should have grabbed it when I posted the thread.

 

[pseudo]

Big Lead snagged some of it:
http://thebiglead.com/?p=2589

 

[Ben_Hecht]

An epic modern example of the wisdom of employing the cooling-off period.

 

[goalmouth]

Usually it's the readers who have to be censored in a blog. The page title is still there in the URL. Sad to say, he managed to misspell 'leach'.

 

[Write-brained]

Didn't the Post just make a bunch of cuts? Perhaps this guy was one of them and had nothing to lose ... if not he's probably made the layoff process much easier.

 

[KJIM]

I can appreciate the rant, but what how does your average "gullible sports fan" react?

 

[User 4755]

Your average gullible sports fan who picks up two tons of garbage cans a day or performs several life-saving surgeries will think it's just another stuffy, pompous-assed journalist complaining about how lousy his easy job is. I have no love for the Eastern Spelling Poker Network, on the other hand, he picked on some of the wrong people. A rant like this drunken dude's does nothing except further lower the public perception of the profession below that of used-car dudes.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I'll give Dater the benefit of the doubt since beat writers are very rarely anywhere close to sane in the first couple weeks after their seasons end...

But that was really embarrassing...