OT - Rosenberg to SI...Deservedly?
This is not meant to start a war about RR and/or LC and I don't suspect it will....still....
I read Rosenberg's fairwell piece today and it was Rosenberg all the way: a little false modesty, a little too much Mitch, and a lot of decent, crisp prose.
Rosenberg has effectively been spreading his tentacles across media outlets for a long time, and his de facto promotion doesn't come as a huge shock. To what extent did his hit job on our program get him about the plummest job there is for a sports writer? He knew the shots he took at Michigan were illegitimate. My guess is that his misrepresentations were a deliberate decision he made to further his career. It worked.
Sad.
I always wanted to congratulate the person who thought of that idea. Brilliant. Whoever it was. But seriously, I always feel the need to qualify both things -- the fact that Rosenberg's book was good, but also the fact that I one-starred it in retaliation for his August 2009 Freep story.
I think Rosenberg has had a part time gig at SI, possibly even before the little expose he did. I highly doubt that that piece is what got a national publication to suddenly notice him. When you are a columnist at a major metro publication for 10 years or more, you're gonna get noticed.
Also worth noting, Rosenberg never mentioned that piece in his farewell column. He's quite aware that probably 15% of the Free Press readership associates him with that piece and only with that piece. I don't think he's necessarily proud of it to the point that he wants to tout it, but I don't think he feels he did anything wrong either. It's just another clipping in his past.
He owes Rich Rodriguez an apology.
with Rosenbergare the jokes and one-liners he cracks in his columns. They're never funny. Ever. Never ever funny.
Whenever one of their own is guilty of malfeasance, incompetence, or corruption, they all close ranks. You'll never see a print or broadcast "journalist" criticize another "journalist" by name, regardless of the level of hackery, mendaciousness, or lazy incompetence. Their ire is strictly reserved for those dirty bloggers.
Dan Rather would like to contact Mr. Rosenberg's agent.
I don't know, but we should keep in mind that a lot of "exposé" pieces on college programs may contain dubious quotes and half-truths, too. Whenever there's an article on some other program being in trouble, we seem to have no problem giving the author the benefit of the doubt. We seem to have this idea that the Rosenberg/Snyder piece is an exceptional bit of agenda-driven writing when there may be other examples out there.
Tim May and Ken Gordon are better and fairer writers than either Rosenberg or Snyder. They made a few mistakes (in a story that actually had more angles than the Michigan story) and the Dispatch posted corrections on the front page of the paper.
I would trade the Free Press for the Dispatch, Mike Rosenberg for Ken Gordon, and Mark Snyder for Tim May, in a milisecond.
I recognize your point about homerism, versus views toward rivals. I think that OSU fans have an excellent case against the way they've been treated by ESPN (with which the school is engaged in active litigation) and even worse by Sports Illustrated and the infamous George Dohrmann.
What Rosenberg did with Michigan and Rodriguez, however, is in a class by itself.
I'd like to see a big national neg-bomb at SI.com when Rosenberg's first byline as "Senior Writer" goes online.
I am not sure SI cares. I dont know what else we can do. I already cancelled my subscription after 10 years a while back, and they wanted to know why. I said it was because Rosenberg wrote for them. SI doesnt care.
all your opportunistic hack journalist are belong to us.
I think we should start a googlebomb for Mr. Rosenberg. There is no more truth to his stretchgate story than there is truth to the fact that Michael Rosenberg faps in the men's room at work 3 or 4 times a day.
Any other ideas?
Too bad.
Didn't Albom already pen a column about an elevator operator anyway? Very original idea, Mike.
Just in case my signature is not clear: FUCK ROSENBERG. FOREVER.
I never liked that Rosenberg, he always seemed to have it out for Michigan.
-Herm
Yeah, you're right. He's legit.
/s
I am not replying under your post, to give you the chance to edit it.
Could you please do me a favor and take it down ASAP? Thanks. Then I will edit this one.
floats
I don't think it was a "hit" on the program. It was information obtained from players and staff. If you're going to be mad at anyone for speaking be mad at THEM, not the guy who reported their words and their wrongdoings. They were found guilty after the NCAA came knocking.
I consider Rosenberg the middle man because he didn't orchestrate or encourage anything, he simply stood by while others blew the top off. I dunno if he is the caliber of writer that SI needs but time will tell. He is a writer and he is staying in the field of journalism so I guess on a literal basis it makes sense that he went to a magazine but like I said, time will tell whether or not it was a good move.
People told him stuff, so he put it on the front page of the Sunday paper. People who he (Rosenberg) approached, and whose identities Rosenberg kept secret, for no valid reason. Except of course for the two guys whose names were put into the story, again for no apparent reason if you believe the reason for anonymity with the first group of interviewees.
And while Rosenberg was just talking to some people, he wasn't talking to others. He never spoke to anybody in Compliance, or the Athletic Department. You know, the people around the whole story really revolved. But, wait. Rosenberg DID ask to speak to Bruce Madej. On the Friday before the Saturday (online) that the Freep was going to print. With the demand for "a statement," quick-like, before they go to press the next day.
A story built 100% on anonymous sources, all of whom turned out to be mistaken. Mistaken, that is, in that they were suggesting things like crazy full-day 'countable hour' violations on Sundays, when the real investigation showed nothing of the kind. What the real investigation found was a lot of weird and hypertechnical stuff (countable stretching, job descriptions of quality control assistants, etc.) that the article never dealt with. And again, the real investigation proved almost nothing of what Rosenberg alleged.
Contrary to what you wrote, Roseneberg "orchestrated" and "encouraged" e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.
If he were on fire.