Communist ploy
If you read Birkett's stuff, you had to know this was only a matter of time.
AA.com replaces Birkett with someone that makes us want to read their articles again!
Here's to an Ann Arbor graced by writers and radio show hosts that actually like the school they are working for.
I'm not asking for a total homer. Not hostile would be a step in the right direction.
I never liked Birkett's "reporting" in the first place. He is now where he belongs with all the other asshats.
I say, one of us on this site should replace him on AA.com
No I don't read Birkett's stuff, which makes him quite a nice fit for the Freep.
...make this stuff up, could you? It's too predictable.
He was padding his resume for the Freep for awhile now.
Amazing. Well at least they are grouping them together. Kind of like a quarantine.
Now we only have one local paper with no credibility that we have to boycott instead of two
is going down and this is a sign that this will happen.
Trust me. I slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
They might as well sequester all of the writers I don't read at the paper I don't read.
Add Pete Fiutak and Lynn Henning, and you've got yourself a deal.
I used to enjoy Lynn Henning. Something about him just isn't the same to me anymore. he changes his mind on things every other day. He rights the most pointless "opinion" columns on the same stuff every day. We get it, the Tigers will be good next year and we should be patient kthx. Seems to do zero research on anything and just goes off how he sees things. Do not like him anymore. I used to though. I'll take Wojo a hundred times over.
...included a list of commercials he likes, citing the relationship between the Geiko gecko and his CEO.
That about sums it up these days for ol' Lynn.
Hope he has a life vest.
when that prick from high school who bullied people and had a crew cut became a sheriff's deputy. You kinda said to your self, "Yeah that fits"
Disclaimer: I am not a cop hater, I respect many cops, but their are a certain portion IMO who have a real holier than thou / bully attitude that makes me unhappy while interacting with them.
I wonder if this will be an opportunity for one of the recent Daily kids to get a job. They're cheap!
As one of the Freep's haters-in-residence, I say let's remember this about Birkett: His record is mixed.
Brian rightly gave him a qualified pass on Birkett's harassing inquiries as to Demar Dorsey. Sort of along the lines of, "Being a prick sometimes is part of the reporter's job, and this time he was a prick."
And then, there is at least one instance I can think of, in which Birkett was nothing short of a stand-up guy. That was the infamous "Katrina" quote from the Football Bust. On that occasion, Regent White had addressed the Bust and went into a rambling dissertation on New Orleans and Katrina. She spoke just before Coach Raodriguez did. Then, when he got up to speak, the Coach mentioned, in passing, and clearly off the cuff, and in complete deference and honrable reference to what Regent White (his BOSS!) had just talked about: Rodriguez talked, for a few seconds, about how he knows New Orleans, how he coached at Tulane, that it is a strong and resilient city, and Michigan's players will show themselves to be a strong and reslient team. Rodriguez never once mentioned "Katrina," as Regent White did (repeatedly). He did use the word, "hurricane," once.
Thanks to Mark Snyder, that story went viral, nationally. With the world presuming, thanks to Mark Snyder, that out of nowhere, Rich Rodriguez began whining about how his team had been through Hurricane Katrina.
It was a textbook example of shitty, slanted deceptive reporting. It may indeed have been a collossal mistake, by Snyder. It is possible (I leave it to Mark Snyder to explain himself) that Snyder was outside of the dining room, interviewing other people, when Regent White was giving her remarks. It is possible that Snyder came in only to hear Rodriguez.
But the ONLY reporter that I know of, who took the effort to straighten it out, was Birkett, who did a story on Katrinagate for AA.com.
This was a story, incidentally, that I think Rodriguez and the Athletic Department found deeply offensive. They took the rare effort to have their webmasters post Regent White's remarks on MGoBlue.com on a Sunday, when Snyder's story went viral.
So I'll give Dave Birkett a fair hearing going forward.
Naturally, there is NO explanation for Rosenberg, Snyder, and their publisher, Paul Anger.
His journey to the dark side is complete.
Gird your loins for the new upcoming attack "expose" on RR and the program. It's absolutely inevitable.
Mr. Drew Sharp, he loves to add his 2 cents. What a crew they have now.
Birkett is a 2* reporter according to such services as MGoBlog, however we feel that he has tremendous upside. 140-character time is amazingly low at 4.29 seconds (laser-timed). We give this 3 Fakes out of 5. He also runs the 100m dash in under 11 seconds while jumping through hoops to bash Michigan every chance he gets. He even did this on their home turf!
General Excitement Level: High. He hates Michigan. We expect him to be able to contribute immediately.
Guru Reliability Level: High. He still sucks balls as a reporter.
What word is the polar opposite of ironic?
Do you mean where a word is used to mean exactly what its supposed to mean, but nobody seems to be aware of it, and they keep trying to attach a different meaning to it?
Does such a word exist?
The Four Horsemen of the M-pocalypse
Sharp, Rosenberg, and Snyder have Birkett locked in a small, windowless room in the Freep HQ, plying him with vodka, Red Bull and beef jerky, desperately hoping to get some small bit of incriminating rumor and innuendo about RR and the program out of him. All Birkett is able to come up with is a printed collection of MLive posts by Tom Hagen.
Birkett at the press conference was a little much, but well within the bounds of standard journalism. His story afterward was fair and had the facts laid out fairly plainly.
The off the cuff, rather confusing joke he made about Dorsey in a live chat earned him a reprimand and he apologized.
Beyond those two incidents, I really don't see how he has maligned the Michigan program and is part of a cabal to destroy Michigan. I haven't interacted with him too much, but he always seemed bright and professional.
There are some legitimate gripes with the mainstream media, but it seems like a lot of people here cry wolf a little too quickly. It does kind of make the Michigan fan base seem a little petty and butt hurt, imhe
Just to be clear, he never apologized. There was an apology from the paper, but none coming directly from him.
Just to be clear, it doesn't matter.
But "some legitimate gripes with the mainstrem media" happens to include a wholly manufactured story that led directly to an NCAA investigation. And a years-long campaign of negativity and unfair reporting. That's not petty. That's a war.
All the gnashing of teeth and rending of flesh about little things and perceived slights takes legitimacy from legitimate gripes about dubious/malicious reporting.
Paul, you realize you are arguing with he of the largest hurt butt and of the most gnashed teeth.
The Freep is not at war with the Michigan football program. They do not spend their time plotting a campaign against Michigan either. What they do is write stories that are designed to attract the most attention because they are in huge trouble financially and need people to read their articles so that they don't fold as a paper. Along the way, they have crossed ethical lines, but it's not like they're goal is to destroy Michigan's program.
Also, I agree with Paul. Making petty complaints makes people not take you seriously.
do not try to defend the Freep in anyway as their fate has been sealed on this blog!
I said that they engaged in unethical practices in an attempt to save their dying business. I fail to see how this is a defense. If I worked for the Freep, I would consider it to be a major accusation and would be highly offended by it.
I also said that we look ridiculous when we spew out rhetoric that makes it look like the media establishment is out to get us out of spite, jealousy, bias, etc. and as such that rhetoric does a disservice to our community. If this is an objectionable viewpoint, then I'm inclined to conclude that we are ridiculous and don't deserve to be taken seriously.
Gotta agree with Seth on this one.
It's the Freep's goal to stay alive, not to destroy Michigan. That said, the Freep is a dying business that will do whatever it takes to get pageviews and sell papers. It's unethical. One way of doing this is to stretch the truth about the most popular team in the readership area.
This is not defending the Freep - it's just that some people, including me, think that the Freep isn't "out to get" Michigan. Rather they are acting in their best interest.
If the Freep could write feel-good stories about Michigan that sold papers and pageviews, don't you think they would?
They are a business. They want to make money. Simple as that.
You don't think the Free Press writes feel good stories about the University of Michigan? You don't think those stories sell papers and pageviews?
How paranoid this fan base is. One look at the Freep's U of Michigan archives shows dozens, nay hundreds, of positive U of Michigan stories.
The question isn't about what the Freep has published about UM as an educational institution, or articles that they've published about UM football prior to 2008; it's about what they've published about RR and the football program since he arrived.
Oddly enough, just a little over a week ago I used the Freep's online search feature to look for articles they'd published about the work that Barwis & Co are doing with Brock Mealer. This was prompted by an article about that topic that had just been published by The News.
The most recent Freep article I could find about Mealer was one published in early 2009 not long after his accident. Not a single one that I could find was about Mealer's work with Michigan S&C people. Given that they've devoted lots of resources to the practicegate articles, don't you find it a tiny bit odd that they haven't found the space to run even a small tidbit about Mealer and the assistance he's being given by UM? That's a feel-good story if there ever was one, and it's one that's been developing for a number of months, as we all know.
So when the Freep doesn't take the time and expense to write its own article about one-specific feel good story, then they are being biased against Michigan? I mean, you've got a story that has been thoroughly covered elsewhere in which new developments are few and far between and do not have any long-reaching ramifications for the program. It's a great story and certainly pulls the heartstrings, but the Freep wouldn't necessarily benefit by going to the time and expense to research and write it when it has been heavily covered by ESPN, the Detroit News, and other outlets.
Yes, they would much rather go through the time and effort to research any and all NCAA programs who have similar stories to practicegate...such as the 2 or 3 articles in the past week they have run on ECU and the coaches they had that conducted practices over the summer. I loved this Title:
Main Title:
"East Carolina's Case Has Similarities With Michigan Football"
Subtitle:
"But it should have little effect on UM."
If that isn't having an agenda to bring down Michigan football, I don't know what is. The freep only wanting to generate hits and revenue is not mutually exclusive to them having a negative agenda towards UM. One is directly related to the other.
No, I don't. I suppose it's never crossed either the mind of you or the other paranoid anti-Freep tin hats around here that MAYBE, just MAYBE, the Freep is sitting on a feature regarding Brock during the time that it might be the most relevant?
Say, during the week of the opener? You know, when Mealer's rehabilitation will be a newsworthy event given his role in the opener? Why should they run stories just to please some message board posters who don't think their favorite football team gets enough good press?
Half of the diatribe against the Freep is that they are a dying business. Tell me how continually providing press for a 9 month period about a subject that will be a huge story the week of the opener is a good business decision.
were getting a little off base here. I personally do not think that the Freep is out to get us out of spite, jealosuy, bias, etc..... I never said that. I think the majority of people on this Blog would agree with me.
I am pissed at them because they engaged in unethical practices for the all mighty $ at the expense of our program!!! Almost every newspaper in the country is in the same boat as the Freep but that shouldn't stop them from writing articles with integrity!!!
what about Rosenberg?
The fact is, Rosenberg DID plot, for more than a month last year, how to screw Michigan's football program in general, and Rich Rodriguez in particular. That is EXACTLY what Rosenberg did, almost EXACTLY one year ago, right now.
One of Rosenberg's favored moles handed him the July 27, 2009 CARA memo. What did Rosenberg do? He could have asked Compliance Services about it. He could have asked Bill Martin about it. He could have gone to Bruce Madej, and said, "I suspect that Rich Rodriguez might not want to answer questions about this, but tell him that I'll do a story with him, or without him."
Rosenberg did NONE of those things. Rosenberg picked up the phone and, presumably, called all the guys he could think of, who really hated Rich Rodriguez. And that's ALL that Rosenberg did. He and Snyder then went to the frankly fraudulent extent of fooling Je'Ron Stokes and Brandin Hawthorne into interviews about which they were clueless.
As you say, Seth, they "crossed ethical lines." Then, on the eve of publication, they waltzed into Bruce Madej's office and asked for comment.
You can say what you want about the Freep's desperation, Seth. I don't think Mike Rosenberg knows exactly what the Free Press' financial condition is. I think Mike Rosenberg has a poisonous vendetta against Rich Rodriguez. The Free Press has made no bones about backing up Rosenberg. So yeah, in that regard, it really is a "war," between the Free Press and Michigan. That is, if you are a Michigan Man willing to back up Rich Rodriguez as much as the Free Press backs up Rosenberg.
We have "rivals," Seth. And we have "enemies." Our rivals are Michigan State, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ohio State. Our enemies are Michael Rosenberg, Mark Snyder, Drew Sharp, Paul Anger and the Free Press.
I'm not making "petty complaints." I see that some people have negged me for taking a nuanced and non-petty approach to Dave Birkett (!?) I have tried not to be petty. I have been making big, serious complaints against a number of Free Press writers for big, serious lapses on their part.
Stop taking your paranoia out on your poor keyboard.
Unless this is the same template you use for the rest of your anti-Free Press tl;dr pieces.