Jon Jansen writing for the Freep
(As well as doing a Q&A and video segments on website).
Didn't he get the memo? ;-)
Feel free to ask him why (politely and logically) at:
Despite this recent movement toward common sense by their editorial board I'm still not reading that publication.
OH NOES!
HOW DO WE CHOOZE BETWEEN BOYCOTT AND MICHIGAN MAN?
I love how you've posted enough to get over 10,000 points, yet you've still got this "I'm too cool for the board" attitude.
Believe me, I don't think I'm cooler than anyone.
Anyone?
It's a big cult. We all just upvote every post from chitown.
Or maybe he is a good poster that makes a lot of sense...
I'll go with the former
At least someone's seeing the dichotomy..
EVERYONE'S GOT STILETTOS!
Much better topic!
That was the first thing. Before anything else, I thanked him for what he's done for our alma mater. Before I even saw this message thread. Here's how it went:
Dear Jon;
The problem is the Freep employs Rosenberg and Snyder and therefore we have boycotted the entire paper for their agenda-based articles and investigations. Frankly, if the Freep were to fire both of their asses tomorrow and hire some new writers, then I would slowly go back to reading the paper. So if the Freep wants to hire Jansen then perhaps he's just the type of person to write "pro" Michigan articles there and provide a more well-rounded journalistic experience. And that, my friends, is something we can all hope for.
I think that Jansen's "beat" will be the the NFL and the Lions. Appropriately so. But everybody at the Freep answers to an editor, and it might be interesting to know who Jansen's editor is. Because there was a senior or managing editor who had to sign off on Rosenberg's use of anonyomous sources. That is, if the Free Press Ethics Policy has any meaning at all.
If you think about it hard enough (which, shouldn't be hard at all), where Jansen publishes his opinions doesn't matter.
But, you're naive if you don't think he'll impart pro-Michigan information in his stories. And, if you really want to read what he's writing, no doubt dozens of posters on this board will find ways to get the information into the public sphere.
Michigan fans want more even-handed coverage from the Freep, so they hire a Michigan grad to write about the Lions and his personal experience. Michigan fan's reaction: "He Doesn't Get Our Rivalry With the Freep."
Head hurts.
My issue with the Freep isn't that their sports articles on the whole tend to have an anti-Michigan slant. My problem is that they publish poorly researched and demonstrably dishonest articles and then refuse to publish appropriate retractions/follow-ups when they are exposed as such. Hiring an additional writer with a Michigan background does nothing to address this.
So, I presume then that you disapproved of the painstaking work that the Freep did uncovering the Kwame Kilpatrick scandals which ultimately proved he was lying under oath, and led to his resignation?
Or, do you not care about that because it didn't affect the football team you cheer for?
As for the Michigan football thing, get over it. Michigan has by their submissions last Monday. You need to as well. if you don't think Sharp and Rosenberg will write pro-Michigan pieces once the team is again successful, you're simply being myopic.
The Free Press "broke" that story when Michael Stefani violated an order of the Wayne County Circuit Court and gave copies of the incriminating text messages to the newspaper. Thereafter, the Freep did three things. They read the texts, published the juicy ones, and then enlisted Herschel Fink to defend the Free Press in court.
I don't think Sharp is pro-anything.
I'm pretty sure he's pro-Sharp, but you never know. The guy's got a screw loose, to listen to him on the radio, which I do, infrequently, whenever I think he might be slandering Michigan again.
Last week was "cheating" week. "They're cheaters!" Sharp said on-air. "Let's just say it; they were cheating. Cheating, and they got caught!" This was after David Brandon gave Drew Sharp much, much more courtesy and professionalism than he deserved, in answering Sharp's provocation about "cheating."
Sharp is pro-pageviews/subscriptions. And to be honest, that should be around 50% of his job. He just forgets about the 50% integretiy portion.
If you don't think Sharp and Rosenberg will write pro-Michigan pieces once the team is again successful, you're simply being myopic.
The whole point of my post was that I'm not terribly concerned with whether Freep sports articles tend to be either pro- or anti-Michigan, but I am fairly concerned that their editorial staff doesn't seem to find it terribly important to meet basic journalistic standards.
Granted, I haven't followed closely the Freep's handling of many other stories, but I find it difficult to believe that a staff that handled Stretch-gate as poorly as the Freep has would display competence and integrity in everything else it does.
In both the Kilpatrick and Stretchgate reports, the Freep's methods were to get a hold of information via shady behavior, then file FOIA requests for the stuff they already had. Making it look like they were good journalists.
There's nothing respectable about that paper. At all.
Even though I like Jon Jansen, I won't read the Free Press as long as Snyder, Rosenberg, and Sharp work their. If they ever fire them like they should I'll read Jansen's articles.
It will help with PR.