Journalists' envy and: the nail on the floor (UM)

I hadn't even thought about the broader social context, but I think you've hit the nail on the head (er..bad choice of metaphors for this thread, but you get the idea)

The poster below who suggested that I offer a conspiracy theory demonstrates one of the main techniques of people who seek to distort facts (see link). It is to “Sidetrack … to associate opponents with unpopular titles such as 'conspiracy buffs', …This makes others shrink from support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you avoid dealing with issues.” (http://www.whale.to/m/disin.html). In fact, other people later may use his label as the truth. This is not an organized conspiracy, as you point out. But I am not saying that it is one. If you carefully read the quote in the article and think about it, you will see that I am trying to provide an explanation of why the media is pounding the nail--UM. Perhaps I was not clear. I do hold responsible the media, but agree that their clients—you and me—actually share some of that responsibility. As you correctly point out, the journalists would not write irresponsibly if some of the public didn’t want to read what they’re writing. The media know that people have an appetite for seeing people or teams who excel get cut down. I currently write books in the area of the neurosciences, and I could show you the regions of peoples’ brains that light up on fMRI when they "cut down" people who are doing well in games. The areas include pleasure centers also activated also by drugs, such as cocaine. So, if you want a metaphor to understand roughly my view of what’s happening, you might think of the people who read the gossip that seedy journalists offer as drug users, sometimes casual ones. Certain journalists are like the drug pushers. While most like you do not fall in this category, I do hold the real pushers responsible. In fact, I think they too even get a more than occasional snort of the drug: the pleasure of knocking people down. These unethical journalists know what they’re doing. It’s like a cigarette company putting more nicotine in cigs to make them more addicting. So, for these unethical journalists to make moral proclamations is truly bizarre. It's about time that people started calling them out. I appreciate that you have done so here. But that’s rare. I don’t buy that we are powerless to do anything about it. If their fellow journalists and commentators speak out, like Craig James did, that matters. On the other hand, if journalists are unwilling to criticize their peers but will stoop to anything to attack others, then that’s a double standard. Then, it’s time for people not only to say something but to exert pressures. For example, while I believe strongly in free speech, I do not think there is a constitutional obligation for people to buy ads or products advertised in media outlets that are engaged in spreading malicious and false gossip. *************************** 2. More detailed comments a. You, like other people with intact auditory and visual capacities, seem to recognize that UM has been pounded relentlessly in the press for quite a while now. For the doubters below, we could actually do an objective content analysis of the news if we want to definitively proves what we already know. b. I realized that some of the poor seasons of other teams cited by me were removed in time by some years, but my point is that the relative importance of an event can only be judged in the context of a broad look at the past. You cannot assess the success of a program by one data point (season) but have to look over a number of years. Consider this: if it is fair for the journalists to (incorrectly) report that UM had its worst season in its 100+ year history, then why is it unfair to look also at the history of other teams too? And I didn’t even go back a hundred years. To provide a context, all I did was to look at the history of a few teams in modern post WWII era. In fact, FLA actually had 3 not 2 winless seasons, as I wrote, but I decided the number of games in one season was not worth reporting. One of the 3 winless seasons also included a tie, 0-10-1. Does that really matter? Isn’t 0-10-1 worse than 3-9? My point remains. You do find outliers, as bad or worse than UM’s 2008 season in the records of even some current media darlings. I did not say that all of their poor seasons should be reported on every broadcast…only that it provides a context for deciding if a 3-9 season is as unusual and important as it is reported to be. It's not. c. The critical poster below says that UM’s bad season was more recent. OK. I suppose that ND’s 3-win season was ages ago (like what, 2 years?) or that MSU didn’t have one or two pretty recent 4-win seasons. If temporal immediacy of a rotten year was the factor driving media coverage as that poster implies, then I find it odd that the 2008 3-9 season is mentioned so often--even now, a year later--reported as the lead-off item in broadcasts, as if it were the most important thing to mention about the 2009 team. In fact, I have seen ESPN broadcast games in which the broadcasters lead off with the past record, with unproven allegations vs. RR, then top it off with pictures of suffering Michigan economy. It’s beyond unfair. It’s outrageous. How often are the past seasons of other teams mentioned as the lead off item in broadcasts when they were equally bad or worse? Do you hear them reporting the current state of the California economy when USC plays a game? Again, for those who don't believe that UM has gotten a disproportionate share of the bad press--especially locally, as you point out--we could actually do an objective content analysis : a study that definitively proves the obvious.