OT: Rutgers AD caught saying it would be "great" if Newark Star-Ledger folded
Julie Hermann, Rutgers' AD, spoke to a journalism class last week and chastised the Newark Star-Ledger, saying it would be "great" if the entire newspaper went under. Again, she said this in a journalism class.
Can you imagine if DB went into one of John U Bacon's classes and said he wished the Freep or Detroit News would just shut down and everyone lost their jobs? Pretty ridiculous.
Forget, for a minute, what you think about the newspaper. It doesn’t matter if you think its Rutgers’ coverage stinks, or its news coverage is biased, or if its columnists are too smug for their own good.
What matters is this: The Star-Ledger employs a lot of people. And if the Rutgers athletic director thinks it would be great if it closed down, then she relishes the idea of seeing those people lose their livelihood, their benefits and maybe more.
http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2014/04/julie_hermann_it_wo…
Even worse than what she said is the timing of it - the Star-Ledger, as the article notes, is going through some very painful layoffs and cutbacks, so to hear the AD at a school your paper covers extensively say that must be utterly infuriating. I certainly wouldn't blame the author for writing a piece on why Hermann probably shouldn't be anywhere near the pay grade she currently resides at, not at a school that so desperately needs some leadership right now.
People at the newspaper will find new jobs. The talent will still be talent and there's this big distributor called the Internet that might help.
The loss of blue-collar jobs will hurt those families, but I hope they have been paying attention to the years of decrease in paper circulation and have begun preparing.
And just because you have a job doesn't mean you're good at it and deserve it. NAZI's had jobs. I personally think they stunk and I'm glad they folded.
The "NAZI's" argument is pretty damn weak here dude. They actually did their jobs pretty well for a while. It is the morality of the work that was at question. Not the quality.
Regardless if the newspaper company deserves to "have their lives ruined, because other media outlets have ruined peoples lives before," The AD of a school shouldn't have stated so publically. No matter what, it ends with bad PR, and makes your school look like dirt.
I'm not saying that all journalists are NAZIs. My sister is a journalist. All I'm saying is that she may have had reason to say what she said even though s he never should have said anything at all.
And I was also addressing the claim of people losing their jobs. I will stand by this, not everyone deserves a job.
I agree with you on that as well. Some people don't deserve the job they currently have. But everyone deserves the right to have a job if they qualify for it or earn it. It's god damn pursuit of happiness brother.
But I am more concerned with your use of Nazi's as a comparison point to draw attention to your original comment.
Godwin's Law didn't take very long in this post
I still get the sense that you haven't read the article, because this is the portion where she gives the line, and there's plenty of context:
The Rutgers athletics director, in a wide-ranging discussion with the class, was talking about her own rocky introduction with the media in New Jersey when … well, here is the exchange:
“If they’re not writing headlines that are getting our attention, they’re not selling ads – and they die,” Hermann told the Media Ethics and Law class. “And the Ledger almost died in June, right?”
“They might die again next month,” a student said.
“That would be great,” she replied. “I’m going to do all I can to not give them a headline to keep them alive.”
And I was also addressing the claim of people losing their jobs. I will stand by this, not everyone deserves a job.
But what about all the independent contractors on the Death Star?
Bunch of savages on this board.
C'mon - is there really any reason to bring up Nazis here? They're working at a newspaper, not for the Third Reich.
So, to your point: I agree that part of free speech is for athletic directors to voice their opinion of the coverage of their teams. And we're missing the context on the internet. But tact and politeness are sometimes hard to find and difficult to maintain.
C'mon man...at least read the article first before spewing your bullshit. Rutgers AD is Julie Hermann. A woman. So its "her reason to say that" and "her position." Also the whole "well Nazi's had (insert moronic thing you're trying to compare here)" line of logic is lazy, moronic, and insensitive. Be better than that.
You obviously know absolutely nothing about the current situation at Rutgers. Thanks for the epinion though.
Rutgers gonna Rutgers.
Seriously why are these guys joining the Big Ten? GTFO.
...for the Section1 post, or whatever his new user name is.
Could be?
how did section 1 get banned? oh glory be!
It's in the Mod Sticky
Yeah, thanks. I wish I'd seen what provoked him, though.
Isn't this exactly what the anti-Freep people wanted the Athletic Department to say after that RichRod jibberish?
Advance Digital, the parent company of this paper, also owns MLive.com.
At least one child of the family that owns the company is a Michigan alum - I met him last year. Nice guy.
that column in response to the AD's comments seems to reinforce her position. It went from comments stating that the paper exists to dig up dirt and print provocative and salacious headlines, to a misguided interpretation that she wants everyone there to lose their jobs.
In my (probably mostly uninformed) opinion, traditional media outlets seem to be doing their damn best to stay "relevant" by trending more toward National Enquirer territory. For all the "old school" journos who once decried the "voracity" of bloggers and such, there are a dozen now trying to take advantage of every rumor and juicy tidbit some random person digs up. There are columnists who feel they can write anything - true or not - with impunity because, hey, it's just my opinion and not an actual news story.
The ethics of the reporting business have gotten very blurred and I think this is what Hermann was reacting to - not some made up wish for everyone to lose their jobs.
Thanks for eloquently stating what i was thinking. The fact that this statement could be mangled and twisted into wishing ill upon individuals livelihoods is absurd.
You are also on point with the state of media today. The internet fundamentally changed the industry and now crowd-sourced info is faster, more reliable, and more accessable than the traditional outlets.
She was not saying this in a vacuum. It wasn't like she was saying, "I'd kill for a bologna sandwich" and (of course) she wouldn't literally kill somone.
If you look at her full quote, she referenced "The Ledger almost died in June, right?" That was in reference to the fact in June 2013 the Star-Ledger's publisher said that the paper would close if employees didn't give big concessions.
Now, 9 months later, she brings it up in a journalism class. So she knows the Ledger is on shaky ground and people are/were getting laid off. Of course, she didn't know over a hundred people would be fired a month after she talked to this class, but it's not like it wasn't on the table.
Now, your larger point whether they DESERVE to lose their jobs (e.g., if they are making up stories or spinning things excessively negative) is not something I can comment on. But this sounds like it was personal -- she is mad that some sports columnists/reporters thought she and her coaches were doing a bad job should be fired, so she thinks all of them should be fired.
Slightly outdated but relevant, particularly the first comment:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/yahoo-lays-off-14-of-workforce,27868/
On the one hand, she's an idiot for picking a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel, and awfully insensitive to boot.
On the other hand, journalists seem to have this perception of themselves where, if they piss someone off enough to be hated by that person, they take that to mean they're doing their jobs, and they pat themselves on the back while playing babe-in-the-woods about the hate, much as the columnist did. On message boards they call that trolling.
100% agree on your assessment of how the media see themselves.
Look - newspapers are basically a website that updates its content every 24 hours and when they do update - they are only able to provide information on events that took place 6-8 hours before the update. The news is very, very stale and all newspapers are doomed - weather the media gets their panties in a knot over the non PC comments of the Rutgers AD.
Newspapers are no different than Yellow Page books. Or land lines for phones. The only people who really read/use them are even older than yours truly and find the internet and technology scary. They will die because their customers are dying and they're not getting new ones.
So just like in the early 60's the locomotive industry's demise threw a lot of really good train conductors out of work, so too will the media have to find something else to do for a living.
One guy at the paper...their Drew Sharp, has been after her job since the day she arrived. It's pathetic.
So yeah, she probably does want them to fold. I don't blame her. She can't get caught saying it, but it doesn't mean she shouldn't feel that way.
politics here. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying a company should go under. Sure, it sucks for the company, and the people that rely on it for their well-being, but how is it helpful to this economy to say we should support a company only because there are people working at it and they will lose their jobs if the company is gone?
To force the Big Ten Network into basic cable packages in the NYC media market.
Rutgers sucks.
Suckgers, anyone???
/s
Cold War caught saying it would be "great" if the Freep folded.
As if we didn't feel the same way about the Freep when they launched their jihad against football team.
Also, saying she wants to see the paper die does not equal wanting people to be fired or laid off. The fact that this "journalist" is jumping to these types of conclusions is absurd.
He's sensationalizing her emotional comments by blowing them completely out of proportion.
When anyone talks about a company they are talking about the company, not it's employees.
Take for example, GM. If I were to say I hope GM goes under for this recall (yes, I am affected), does that mean I want 200,000+ to get laid off? No, it's just an emotional attack on an entity.
This guy certainly is the Drew Sharp of the Ledger if he's equating her corporate attacks to layoffs.
I guess I don't see the big deal, outside of the PR disaster for the embattled AD. Newspapers are allowed to run a number of dubious articles under the guise of "journalism", and if a frequent recipient of that coverage wishes they'd stop by going out of business doesn't seem bad to me. She shouldn't say it for publicity reasons, but I'm fine with her being sick of it.
Let's not forget that Julie Hermann is a lying sack of shit and a bully....
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20140407/julie-h…