Interesting situation in Detroit - UPDATED

[Moderator1]

http://www.maynardije.org/columns/dickprince/060714_prince/

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

Two points:

1.) Ownership and top management have changed since the Albom incident. Apples and oranges.

2.) There's no one in the biz I'd trust more than the Freep's current top editor and just a few I'd trust as much.

 

[leo1]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

"We don't have enough minority representation in high-ranking positions in our newspapers," Farrell, 48, added. "If I was a white guy with this experience level, I'd be a columnist for a major paper."

where does this come from? first he alleges they wanted him out. then later he decides it's because he's black? come on. i'm white and know nothing about this situation so i don't know the deal. but it sounds like if what he said is his only violation, it's a case of wanting to get rid of the guy. this kind of thing happens. definitely unfair and it sucks for the guy. racism? seems doubtful.

 

[slappy4428]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

Perry A.(sshole) Farrell was suspended more than a few years ago for plagarism. He took the AP's NBA caps, sent them into the desk as his own. When a copy desker caught it, he coughed, harrumphed and said he sent these by mistake, yet couldnt produce the ones with his name on it.
His statement of "If I was a white guy with this much time..." Is pure Perry Farrell bull****. He yearned to be Terry Foster -- someone who tried to be the "black voice of Detroit" even if selfappointed like Foster.
Perry's biggest problem is Perry, not the color of his skin or the Man keeping him down.
Sorry, but he ****ed his way down the food chain. He should have gotten fired after the Pistons incident, but didn't because Jack Saylor had been busted a couple of months before and he didn't get fired. So if they didn't fire Saylor, they couldn't fire Ferrell.
That would be the same Jack Saylor who had written for newspapers three times as long as Farrell, yet ended his career on a beat -- not as a lead columnist. That might be somethign worth noting as Perry spews his revisionist history on how he should have been a columnist.

 

[TwoGloves]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

One major flaw with that story is that it says Ferrell was on the Pistons beat for "15-16" years. That would take you back to the Bad Boys days, when Drew Sharp was still the beat writer. What was the story behind Saylor's suspension?

 

[JME]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

Insert Jane's Addiction Pun here.

 

[novelist_wannabe]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

Farrell may be right about the newspapers not having sufficient minority representation at their upper levels in this country -- and we've discussed as much ad infinitum here -- but he's missing a pretty important fact: Newspapers have more than their share of dumbasses at all levels. If he's been writing for newspapers for 18 years -- and particularly so with the personal history Slappy mentioned -- then he most certainly should know better than to lift a quote. And this instance looks like the height of laziness; he already had quotes on tape that he had gotten himself. What kind of ****head gets his own quotes and then steals someone else's?

 

[Hank_Scorpio]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

I don't think I've ever seen Farrell's name on a high school story.


And for what it's worth, the Pistons beat writer is a woman now, the former Krista Latham (she just got married, but cant remember that name).

 

[Songbird]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

Insert Jane's Addiction Pun here.

"Got caught stealing, once, when I was 48 ... "

 

[JME]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

Very well played.

 

[Overrated]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

I don't think I've ever seen Farrell's name on a high school story.


And for what it's worth, the Pistons beat writer is a woman now, the former Krista Latham (she just got married, but cant remember that name).

Jahnke I believe. She's pretty damn good.

 

[slappy4428]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

I don't think I've ever seen Farrell's name on a high school story.


And for what it's worth, the Pistons beat writer is a woman now, the former Krista Latham (she just got married, but cant remember that name).

Farrell did some stuff from the baseball and softball finals... he replaced the future Mrs. Hank_Scorpio in the western burbs on the community beat

And Saylor got caught plagarizing some golf copy.. cant remember where, but (can get it in a day or so) got busted for it during the summer before Perry made his mishap with his NBA caps.... Jack got a week, setting the precedent....

 

[ChickWriter1975]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

Actually, I don't think this is apples and oranges in terms of the Albom situation. What Albom did was worse because he completely fabricated a scene that never happened. It wasn't just him placing two basketball players some place they weren't. He described what they were wearing, and how they were cheering. Even worse, it passed through several editors and actually ran in the paper. Farrell's story didn't run.

Obviously, there's a huge difference between Farrell and Albom in terms of importance, but that **** wouldn't hold up in a court of law, would it?

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

It's apples and oranges because the new owner and new editor do not necessarily need to abide by the precedents of the previous owner and editor in determining punishment for these types of things, although it's the same newspaper with many of the same workers. Gannett and Paul Anger are free to make up their own minds and choose a different way of handling situations than the Freep did under KR and Carole Leigh Hutton. So the blogger attempting to compare the two is apples and oranges. It would be a valid comparison only if KR and Hutton were still calling the shots, or if Gannett and Anger had somehow agreed to run the Freep exactly the same as KR and Hutton.

 

[DyePack]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

Actually, I don't think this is apples and oranges in terms of the Albom situation. What Albom did was worse because he completely fabricated a scene that never happened. It wasn't just him placing two basketball players some place they weren't. He described what they were wearing, and how they were cheering. Even worse, it passed through several editors and actually ran in the paper.

It ran in every paper it was sent to. No editor at any level at any newspaper caught the mistake. The only change made to it was by a rookie copy editor, who simply made it worse. That "fix" was applauded by Poynterbots and dolts everywhere.

 

[JME]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

"We don't have enough minority representation in high-ranking positions in our newspapers," Farrell, 48, added. "If I was a white guy with this experience level, I'd be a columnist for a major paper."

This quote seems odd. I'd presume there are plenty of reporters with his experience level who haven't gotten columnist jobs at major papers.

 

[dcdream]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

It's apples and oranges because the new owner and new editor do not necessarily need to abide by the precedents of the previous owner and editor in determining punishment for these types of things, although it's the same newspaper with many of the same workers. Gannett and Paul Anger are free to make up their own minds and choose a different way of handling situations than the Freep did under KR and Carole Leigh Hutton. So the blogger attempting to compare the two is apples and oranges. It would be a valid comparison only if KR and Hutton were still calling the shots, or if Gannett and Anger had somehow agreed to run the Freep exactly the same as KR and Hutton.

Wasn't Gene Myers his direct supervisor under both companies? Has the name of the Detroit Free Press changed between Gannett and KR?
The bottom line is in the court of law, people may not see it as Gannett and KR. We newspaper people would. But when a juror hears Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press fabricated a story and was punished one month and Perry Ferrell of the Detroit Free Press lifted a passage from a website, but his story was not published, but was dismissed.
So you the jury decide.

 

[slappy4428]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

And if that was the first time Ferrell'd tried to pawn off copy as his own, you'd be correct in thinking it is an unfair comparison.
However dubious, Albom's copy passed muster of an investigation (which just killed me).
Farrell's not a first-time offender. And that's why he's gone.

 

[dcdream]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

And if that was the first time Ferrell'd tried to pawn off copy as his own, you'd be correct in thinking it is an unfair comparison.
However dubious, Albom's copy passed muster of an investigation (which just killed me).
Farrell's not a first-time offender. And that's why he's gone.

Who's to say that Albom did not have any previous offenses?

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Re: Interesting situation in Detroit

It's apples and oranges because the new owner and new editor do not necessarily need to abide by the precedents of the previous owner and editor in determining punishment for these types of things, although it's the same newspaper with many of the same workers. Gannett and Paul Anger are free to make up their own minds and choose a different way of handling situations than the Freep did under KR and Carole Leigh Hutton. So the blogger attempting to compare the two is apples and oranges. It would be a valid comparison only if KR and Hutton were still calling the shots, or if Gannett and Anger had somehow agreed to run the Freep exactly the same as KR and Hutton.

Wasn't Gene Myers his direct supervisor under both companies? Has the name of the Detroit Free Press changed between Gannett and KR?
The bottom line is in the court of law, people may not see it as Gannett and KR. We newspaper people would. But when a juror hears Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press fabricated a story and was punished one month and Perry Ferrell  of the Detroit Free Press lifted a passage from a website, but his story was not published, but was dismissed.
So you the jury decide.

Anger's a very sharp guy. I would be astonished if he didn't confer with the newspaper's lawyer.