Beat News: Baumgardner to the Freep

Submitted by jimmyshi03 on

Nick Baumgardner announced on his personal twitter that he'll be moving the the Freep starting next week. 

Obviously he replaces Mark Snyder, who left the profession about a month ago. Tough month or so for MLive, which also lost Brendan Quinn to the Athletic.  

PopeLando

August 14th, 2017 at 3:12 PM ^

I hope MLive's next move is to shut down their comments section. Ever since IMDB did the right thing, MLive and YouTube have vied for the "worst cesspool of humanity" award.

Oh, and congrats on the new job Nick.

FauxMo

August 14th, 2017 at 3:15 PM ^

Sorry, but the Facebook comments section connected to ANY Fox News article wins that award hands down. And no, this is not a shot at conservatives/right-wingers. There are an equally large (if not larger) number of uninformed left-wingers that pollute those comments sections in a vain attempt to bait the right-wingers... 

pinkfloyd2000

August 14th, 2017 at 11:56 PM ^

By comparison, Facebook comments are Umberto Eco quality as compared to the comment sections you'll find on YouTube and Yahoo. I think it has to do in part with anonymity. When you don't throw your real name out there, you're more likely to go off the handle in ways that you might not normally do with your actual moniker attached to your posting.

BTW Yahoo, especially, is just hot garbage in general -- site design, usability...just everything there is awful. And it USED to be halfway decent/borderline good, way back when.

Late Bluemer

August 14th, 2017 at 4:37 PM ^

MLive had to shut down their girls fastpitch softball section (sub-site?) bc of all of the abusive a**holes who used to post on it trashing individual teams, coaches, school and even on occassion specific players.  This was for a site geared at travel teams for 8 to 18 year old girls!  These weren't even isolated incidents.  It seemed like half of the posts were by drunken obnoxious idiots.  You are right, witnessing that garbage really weakened my faith in humanity. 

 

JayMo4

August 14th, 2017 at 3:15 PM ^

I hope he can get a new podcast put together. I know not everyone likes him, but I appreciate the perspective of a non-fan.

That, and I love it when he calls out the shit fans for acting shitty.

OwenGoBlue

August 14th, 2017 at 3:28 PM ^

An opportunity for MLive to get someone who can actually write to be the main football writer.

Nick seems to have good hustle but if I had to read one more two sentence paragraph in which the second sentence was "Period." my head was going to explode. 

Anyone an Athletic subscriber? I'm curious if it's worth the price of admission. 

ish

August 14th, 2017 at 4:51 PM ^

really?  i think he's among the best beat reporters i've ever read.  dude can watch and breakdown tape, and well.  his recent analyses of incoming recruits were good.  he also doesn't suffer fools on twitter.  i think he's an MSU grad and yet is reasonable.

well deserved, nick.

Double-D

August 14th, 2017 at 4:00 PM ^

He writes more stuff I appreciate now and seems to be pretty knowledgeable.

About five years ago he was intolerable. Then again maybe it was partially that our football program was intolerable.

MGoShorts

August 14th, 2017 at 4:06 PM ^

I respect Nick and his work ethic, but I've always felt he's much more willing to take on the Michigan fan base than most writers. This is a bit concerning considering he's joining, you know, the Freep. That said, I'll continue to read his stuff.

Everyone Murders

August 14th, 2017 at 4:18 PM ^

IIRC, Baumgardner is an MSU alum, and for the first couple of years he was writing it really showed.  I think his writing got progressively better and more balanced, so I'm happy to see him take this step.

I still won't read the Freep much if I can help it (moral stance - I know my non-readership is but an ant in Alaska as far as the paper's revenues go).  As bad as Rosenburg and Snyder were (and they were really bad), the editors that let the Stretchgate stories go out unchecked and uncorrected did a lot of damage to an already wounded Michigan football program. 

/ waits for someone to tell me I need to let this go b/c they decided to let it go ... /

StephenRKass

August 14th, 2017 at 4:29 PM ^

I hope this means more money for Nick. Congrats to him.

As for the Freep, with Rosenberg gone, Sharp dead, and Snyder out of "journalism," the main players in the Michigan hatchet job are gone. I know there are many at mgoblog who will never read the Free Press, out of personal conviction. Myself, I think it is time for all to move on. Judge the content based on the content, not on the past. To each his own.

myislanduniverse

August 14th, 2017 at 4:37 PM ^

I didn't particularly care for Nick's writing style, to say nothing of the slightest perception of anti-Michigan bias (at least in the first couple of years). I feel like he uses square bracket parentheticals far too heavily to add or change words in people's quotes and change the context of their statements. And he does it a lot.

Fieldy'sNuts

August 14th, 2017 at 4:40 PM ^

Hopefully M-Live doesn't hire another MSU grad to replace Sparty Baumgardner. We don't need a Michigan fan boi necessarily but I WOULD prefer someone who DOESN'T root for Michigan to lose games. I don't know, maybe someone who DIDN'T spend their college years sitting in the Izzone rooting for Michigan to lose to Staee. Also, the way Baumgardner harassed Hoke for not talking about the Brendan Gibbons situation (which Hoke was prohibited from doing) was unforgivable in my opinion. Good riddance. 

LabattsBleu

August 14th, 2017 at 4:51 PM ^

i really thought he was a pretty solid writer...obviously this was a step up for him.

that said, I can't say i will be visiting the Freep anytime soon however... i'll see how his replacement at MLive does/is first.

Still hoping him and Brendan do their own podcast

BornInA2

August 14th, 2017 at 4:52 PM ^

Quinn is an excellent writer and astute observer. Even though he'd stepped back from the football beat, I miss him at MLive.

Nick puts in the effort, but his style or writing is much less pithy. Maybe that's an effect of the article quota at MLive.

That said, I run the MVPS hosts file for security reasons and MLive changed their site earlier this year in a way that it doesn't work in that scenario (causes the browser process to go to 99% CPU), so I've been reading it less, and only on my phone.

wildbackdunesman

August 14th, 2017 at 5:17 PM ^

I wonder if the Freep is hoping to pull in people that have hated them, by going with an established Michigan writer from another media source.  If so, they should have went with a Sam Webb type - assuming Sam would go over.

skurnie

August 14th, 2017 at 5:34 PM ^

Nick is a good writer but seems like he'd a much better fit at a non-traditional outlet. When's the last time you saw a beat writer breaking down film?

Upgrade for the Freep but I'm not sure it is for Nick. With all the cuts happening to Freep the past few months, I'm not sure you could pay me enough to join them.