A new "respected" voice emerges at the Freep to trash M over Dorsey

I've read McCabe for years. Am very disappointed. I sent him the following email. Hat tip to the OP, from which I borrowed liberally: Mick: I've been a reader of yours for years and have enjoyed your work. On your Dorsey article of today, I respect your opinion though I do not agree with it. However, I think you crossed a line and challenged the intellectual honesty of Michigan supporters (including me). You wrote this to end your article on Dorsey: My question to them is simple: What would be their reaction if Dorsey had signed with Michigan State? I know exactly what I would say if Dorsey was signed by MSU, nothing. Just like I did when MSU signed Glenn Winston. And BTW, that was exactly the position taken by you and your paper. Even though Winston served 6 months in prison for an assult which sent a kid to the hospital. This just before he set foot on campus! Yet MSU brought him in and faced no outrage from any quarter. Not Michigan fans. Not you or your paper. So please, as a decades long reader tell me, Mick, what changed? I will let you all know if McCabe has the decency to respond.

This gives me hope that the Free Press will still run my op-ed piece on the Rhianna-Chris Brown incident.

about the great nerd massacre, starring one carson butler, and the marlin jackson punch in the head incident. Still, I think the difference between UM and MSU are 1) the responses to the indiscretions and 2) the lack of a pattern, in UM's case, of these sorts of incidents.

"I got negbombed for thinking it was wrong that our great public university offered a full ride scholarship to this kid just cause he's a potentially very good football player." Just like every other player on the team? Thinking that M is better than taking a kid whop has had some troubles but is making an effort to better himself is exactly the sort of entitled bullshit attitude that everyone harps on Michigan fans for having. Way to prove Sparty, Buckeyes, and everyone else right.

However, I do have a problem in your application of said principle. Had Michigan accepted a LOI from someone like Willie Williams (remember him from a few years back?), I would've had a fit. This kid had 10 arrests in 5 years, including 2 felonies; was on 18 month probation; and was charged with a felony and 2 misdemeanors stemming from an out-of-control recruiting visit to Florida, all while on probation. Demar Dorsey, OTOH, has been clean for 2 years and publicly stated he's looking forward to get away from the negative influences back home.

The beginning of your post made my brain hurt. UM has a history of offering full-ride scholarships to kids who are potentially very good football players. I think lots of schools do it. UM fans with half a brain got "pissy" when McCabe attempts to put words in our mouths, accuses us of being hypocritical while ignoring a MASSIVE hypocrisy at the freep which he now has officially contributed to. To break this down like Dimitri Martin, we'll play a game called "OK or Asshole" -Having an opinion = OK -Denigrating an 18 yo just to sell papers = Asshole -Doing research to back up your opinion = OK -Making wild and libelous accusations without research = Asshole -Making wilde and libelous accusations after doing research to back up your opinion...= still an asshole, but you're ok with me.

you got negbombed for expressing a wrong headed opinion. and apparently again trying to pass your (and the "respected" mccabe's) opinion for fact. signed a pissy michigan fan

Why don't "we" allow it to "die" of its own accord instead of dictating the time frame to others. What's funny about "let this one go" requests is that they usually cause the story to last longer than if we just trusted the collective intellect of the posters at mgoblog to decide. When there is no more interest, the story will die. I am guessing, though, that the freep will keep it going until Dorsey graduates. And I am in the corner of those who would rather see posts supporting Dorsey. We already know that Dorsey, his family, and his HS coach read most of what is written about him. I would prefer to see them have some support to read if they google his name. Shows of support help balance out the negativity and help counter the freep's malicious intent.

My favorite part was when he said Dorsey should go to GRCC. (!?) Umm... what? All he would learn there is, well, nothing unless he wants to become a dental hygienist. I'd like for this guy to explain to me how he learns respect, self control, etc. etc. (making the bold assumption he hasn't already after the last couple years with no incidents) at GRCC easier than at Michigan where he'd be in a rigorous training program, with his cousin, and with a large group of coaches breathing down his neck at all times to keep him in line. It's frustrating to read stuff like this, because beyond not reading the paper or the website there's really not much we can do. There will still be thousands of hits on their articles every day, and until the whole thing goes under, the Freep will keep spewing sewage all over our program.

but i wouldn't put those products on par with each other. i would much rather read a cottonelle package than the freep.

All of the things you just suggested are, in fact, illegal. They're using their free speech, and are allowed to do so, unless someone wants to try to sue them for slander or libel.

The best way is to boycott the companies that advertise with the freep and to let those companies know that you're unhappy with their choice to advertise in the freep. Newspapers respond to their advertisers. Period. If enough people do this, there will be a change. That's the best way to take them down.

Who the hell is that in your avatar? Wowza.

during the signing day live blog that brian said he would give you your points back??? either way i gave you a +1...

You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts. Nor is the Free Press. Why, do you suppose, that Mick McCabe would step out of his role as Preps Reporter, into a role as opnion columnist? Perhaps the same reason that Mike Rosenberg stepped out of his role as opinion columnist into the role of "investigative reporter." Which earned Rosenberg and the Free Press the charge of "journalistic malpractice" from New Republic editor Jonathon Chait. This story was trotted out today not because it is news, but because Friday is a home delivery day for the Free Press, and it would be a shame to waste such a day without some more Freep hate-speech directed at Rich Rodriguez. You say the story is about "fedupness." I say you are full of the same infectious b.s. that all Free Press true believers are; that a dozen completely baseless stories about Rich Rodriguez somehow equals one real, true, disturbing story about him. My challenge to people like Mick McCabe, is that if they still have a newspaper job in four years, to come back to this story and, if (as I suspect) Demar Dorsey is an All-Big Ten defensive back with a clean record of good behavior, that Mick McCabe will fall down on his knees in the Diag and beg forgiveness for this trash bit of yellow journalism. I am not going to forget this fucking mess in four years. And I am not going to let the Free Press writers or anyone else forget it either. And I am NOT going to take any crap from people like Sharp or McCabe, that they didn't necessarily predict failure for Dorsey, they were merely expressing "concern." Bullshit. Bullfuckingshit. The simple question is whether Demar Dorsey's arrest record ought to have disqualified him from recruiting. Otherwise, there is no story. If you write the story at all, you have to be making that judgment. Or you don't write it. McCabe has made his judgment. Me might be right. If he is wrong -- and I am betting that time will prove him wrong -- I want to be there to harass and harangue Mick McCabe. I want him to eat this story, and do it publicly. I want to embarass him.

Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

By what measure is he one of the best sports writers in the Detroit Market? I could say with as little evidence that I think he's been a joke covering the high school scene and any reasonable follower of high school athletics has long ago turned to Markowski at the Detroit News, long before anyone wrote anything about Michigan. And his articles isn't good work, it's factually inaccurate and two faced (See below). And people who produce work like that, we can lose all of them, frankly. I like your normal willingness to take a contrary position, but it feels like now you're just being different just to stir the pot.