Striiker
Earthquake Survivor
OK, so before I start this I want to make it clear that this isn't aimed at Tony Androckitis. He made the tweet that I disagree with, the one that made me think about this, but he's not part of the problem that I'm about to complain about. You'll see what I mean.
So, I'm following the Flyers preseason game on Twitter, since it wasn't on TV or streamed anywhere, and I stumble across these tweets in response to all the fans complaining about lack of a stream or broadcast.
I disagree. I really, really disagree.
Of course my first reaction is "So what's wrong with wanting first hand knowledge? Obviously Flyers fans want to watch the Flyers games for ourselves...".
But what I really had a problem with was that the blame was being directed at fans for media jobs dying out, as if we're being ungrateful or unreasonable. No, that's not what's going on at all. What's killing media jobs? The majority of the media being obsolete and awful at their jobs is what's killing media jobs.
Look at the perfect examples, Sam Carchidi and Tim Pannacio. They have more access to the team than most of the writers/bloggers/reporters that actually do a good job, and yet they are two of the most unreliable, and least valuable, sources out there.
They aren't any more knowledgeable than the fans, so what's their purpose? What do they provide? Well you could say that they provide access to the players, coaches, and management, that the fans don't have, in the form of direct quotes that we wouldn't get otherwise. But do they do a good job there? No, not at all. They ask questions that beg for (and receive) cookie cutter cliche answers, they ask questions that they know won't/can't be answered, and they ask questions that have ridiculously obvious answers.
Q- "What went wrong tonight?"
A- "Well Manning made a terrible pinch and then Mason let in a soft goal at the end there, which really screwed us"
Is that what they expect? Do they hope that the players will throw each other under the bus so they have drama to write about? Of course that's not going to happen.
Unless they're interviewing a lunatic like Tortorella, the answer they'll realistically get is along the lines of:
"Well we just didn't play our game tonight and we have to be better."
Wow, super insightful.
So what are we really gaining from them? What incentives do we have to come back to them for information? These days anything that we could possibly want to know is online. Schedules, highlights, raw statistics, contract details, team salary cap situations, and anything else we might search for is available to us through many different websites. This isn't like a few decades ago when the only way you could find things out is through the media by reading the newspaper, watching the news, or listening to the radio.
Since that's no longer the case, the media members who warrant our support and attention are ones that provide us with unique and valuable insight. People like Tony Androckitis (AHL news that we might not see otherwise since the AHL isn't nearly as visible as the NHL), Bob MacKenzie (information gathered from scouts about prospects and one of the most reliable sources of NHL rumors), Bill Meltzer (an intelligent/informed viewpoint and source of information), and even non-professional media sources like Appleyard (updates on European prospects and in depth articles/posts about all Flyers players/prospects showing statistics that are a result of more research than most of us are willing to do). Those are the types of people who deserve to have jobs, not the lazy beats I mentioned above who provide nothing of real value. Unfortunately, those media members heavily outnumber the good ones, which is a shame.
What's really killing media jobs is the media members. Lazy, uninformed, arrogant media members who don't take their jobs seriously and don't care enough to work at being a truly informative source. They'll just keep tossing out their short articles that provide nothing of value because they're somehow able to get away with that. If the non-trash media want to be annoyed at anyone then be annoyed at the people hiring these trash media members, wasting the jobs that the good ones deserve. Maybe we'll start to see a change in the media since many of the bad ones were around before the internet became what it is today, and were actually useful at one point, but refused to evolve with the times. Hopefully as they retire and get replaced by fresh blood we'll see an improvement, but I guess we'll have to see.
TLDR: My jimmies are rustled.
So, I'm following the Flyers preseason game on Twitter, since it wasn't on TV or streamed anywhere, and I stumble across these tweets in response to all the fans complaining about lack of a stream or broadcast.
I disagree. I really, really disagree.
Of course my first reaction is "So what's wrong with wanting first hand knowledge? Obviously Flyers fans want to watch the Flyers games for ourselves...".
But what I really had a problem with was that the blame was being directed at fans for media jobs dying out, as if we're being ungrateful or unreasonable. No, that's not what's going on at all. What's killing media jobs? The majority of the media being obsolete and awful at their jobs is what's killing media jobs.
Look at the perfect examples, Sam Carchidi and Tim Pannacio. They have more access to the team than most of the writers/bloggers/reporters that actually do a good job, and yet they are two of the most unreliable, and least valuable, sources out there.
They aren't any more knowledgeable than the fans, so what's their purpose? What do they provide? Well you could say that they provide access to the players, coaches, and management, that the fans don't have, in the form of direct quotes that we wouldn't get otherwise. But do they do a good job there? No, not at all. They ask questions that beg for (and receive) cookie cutter cliche answers, they ask questions that they know won't/can't be answered, and they ask questions that have ridiculously obvious answers.
Q- "What went wrong tonight?"
A- "Well Manning made a terrible pinch and then Mason let in a soft goal at the end there, which really screwed us"
Is that what they expect? Do they hope that the players will throw each other under the bus so they have drama to write about? Of course that's not going to happen.
Unless they're interviewing a lunatic like Tortorella, the answer they'll realistically get is along the lines of:
"Well we just didn't play our game tonight and we have to be better."
Wow, super insightful.
So what are we really gaining from them? What incentives do we have to come back to them for information? These days anything that we could possibly want to know is online. Schedules, highlights, raw statistics, contract details, team salary cap situations, and anything else we might search for is available to us through many different websites. This isn't like a few decades ago when the only way you could find things out is through the media by reading the newspaper, watching the news, or listening to the radio.
Since that's no longer the case, the media members who warrant our support and attention are ones that provide us with unique and valuable insight. People like Tony Androckitis (AHL news that we might not see otherwise since the AHL isn't nearly as visible as the NHL), Bob MacKenzie (information gathered from scouts about prospects and one of the most reliable sources of NHL rumors), Bill Meltzer (an intelligent/informed viewpoint and source of information), and even non-professional media sources like Appleyard (updates on European prospects and in depth articles/posts about all Flyers players/prospects showing statistics that are a result of more research than most of us are willing to do). Those are the types of people who deserve to have jobs, not the lazy beats I mentioned above who provide nothing of real value. Unfortunately, those media members heavily outnumber the good ones, which is a shame.
What's really killing media jobs is the media members. Lazy, uninformed, arrogant media members who don't take their jobs seriously and don't care enough to work at being a truly informative source. They'll just keep tossing out their short articles that provide nothing of value because they're somehow able to get away with that. If the non-trash media want to be annoyed at anyone then be annoyed at the people hiring these trash media members, wasting the jobs that the good ones deserve. Maybe we'll start to see a change in the media since many of the bad ones were around before the internet became what it is today, and were actually useful at one point, but refused to evolve with the times. Hopefully as they retire and get replaced by fresh blood we'll see an improvement, but I guess we'll have to see.
TLDR: My jimmies are rustled.
