Goricki of DetNews: RichRod's last year

As one who has "boycotted" the Freep, it's not that I want them to die for their mistakes, I just want them to learn something from them. It wasn't just because two guys wrote a negative story, it's the institution's lack of self-correction and editorial control. I don't want to throw out all of the good things they have accomplished, just improve the bad. 

no one on here yelled BOYCOTT, at least on this thread.

Someone saw a poorly reasoned article that made some rather outlandish predicitions and simply put (you see what I did there?), passed it on to the group.

Thread title is pretty intuitive, it is so easy not to click in the first place, then easier yet not to click on the link if you felt mislead by the thread title, easier still to not come in and 'roll your eyes' at all the BOYCOTT FREEP comments not being presented when you are simply one click away from going back to the list of titles and reading something else.

I would tend to agree on the BOYCOTT FREEP sentiment, although I would support a boycott of Rosenberg/Snyder stuff, just becuase it would be better if the rest of the Free Press were flourishing while their stuff was lagging, they would then be a little more exposed. 

... the paper whose editorial board had ENDORSED the re-election campaigns of Kwame Kilpatrick, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Jennifer Granholm, Debbie Stabenow, etc., etc.

And, it is the paper whose publisher (Paul Anger) specifically defended the dubious use of anonymous sources by Rosenberg and Snyder.  When Rosenberg is questioned hard enough (who, in the Detroit media landscape questions Rosenberg at all?), even he no longer claims that his anonymous sources needed anonymity to protect them from "retribution from ... coaches" etc.  Rosenberg's new fallback position is that his sources need anonymity from "general" hostility.  Like that, I guess, which Rosenberg has so deservedly received for the past 10 or 12 months.  (Rosenberg's antipathy to Rodriguez predated the August story as we all know very well.)

Freep Publisher Paul Anger is the guy who gave us the sanctimonious garbage that the Free Press investigation was in the name of combatting "excess":

"This apparent excess goes against the concept of student-athlete as embraced by the NCAA, which years ago set up rules trying to ensure that players have a semblance of a normal college experience, that they have time for class, that they are not at greater risk of injury in excessive drills and that overzealous coaches can't gain a competitive advantage..."

The Freep Publisher's defense of Rosenberg and Snyder contained this line, too, which is so misleading as to be little short of a bald-faced lie:

"We asked U-M officials for any documents or other evidence that would refute the information [before publishing the August '09 story]."

The Free Press never did any such thing.  The Free Press kept its entire investigation concealed while it was ongoing, including the sandbagging interviews of then-freshmen Je'Ron Stokes and Brandin Hawthorn, at their first-ever media day.  The Free Press did not even utilize the tool available to it, the tool that they would later utilize in this case, namely the FOIA process, until after publication of the August story.  The Free Press obviously did not want anyone to know what they were up to, interview-wise.  And most important of all, the Free Press certainly did not give Michigan a chance to look into the subject and respond to the story that the Freep was going to publish.  By Rosenberg's own stated admission, the Free Press did not contact the University until the Friday before they posted the story on its webpage on Saturday and then put it into the Sunday paper.

So please don't give me any excuses about what a great source of important public-corruption investigations the Free Press is.

The Kwame Kilpatrick story fell into the Free Press' lap when a lawyer disobeyed a court order and handed text message copies to the Free Press.  The Michigan practice "investigation" was launched by Rosenberg after someone (presumably) gave Rosenberg the July audit report to the Compliance Services Office.

So no, I haven't seen anything that changes my mind about what an unreliable, malicious, low-quality institution the Free Press is. 

<<<"But remember - the rallying cry here isn't "Boycott Rosenberg and Snyder" or even "Boycott the Sports Section". It's "Boycott the Free Press" - the journalistic entity that wrote a phenomenal expose on Kwame, effectively destroying him, and has exposed Monica Conyers for the raving loon that she is. People want to throw ALL of that out because 2 guys wrote a negative story about their favorite team? Grow up.">>>

Do you seriously think that if I keep a subscription to the Free Press they will learn a lesson from me not turning the page to the sports section on my couch? 

If I can't trust the Free Press to cover things that I know about, why should I trust them to cover the things that I don't know about?

Their management stands behind dishonest methods.  It wasn't a negative story, but a dishonest story that was defended by them dishonestly.  They deserve any boycotts they get from disillussioned readers.  I don't see why you are so worked up about other people's basic right to vote with their wallets.

Using your logic, should Nixon not have been pressured to resign since he did some good things as president like the EPA, relations with China, proposed the Family Assistance Plan, etc.  Why throw it all out for Watergate?