OT: Pittsburgh Media Thread - Still the Worst | Now with Drunken Rants!

[billybudd]

Brassard comes off as a basketcase, living in a world of unreality.

What did the PG do which suddenly has them as worse than the Nuttings? Beyond, I'm assuming, downsizing people. Worth mentioning that when Nutting purchased Seven Springs, he laid off pretty much everybody.

 

[HandshakeLine]

@HandshakeLin you see this?

Haha, yeah. It even popped up on Czech twitter. Good god, Block sucks, and I feel bad for his daughter.

 

[Jacob]

Brassard comes off as a basketcase, living in a world of unreality.

What did the PG do which suddenly has them as worse than the Nuttings? Beyond, I'm assuming, downsizing people. Worth mentioning that when Nutting purchased Seven Springs, he laid off pretty much everybody.

I think the PG took a hard right turn politically but I’m not up on the details... I recall some oddly sexist (and worst of all unfunny) political cartoons and their owner or editor or someone came out and defended some of Tr*mp’s more ludicrous takes.

 

[Beauner]

I think the PG took a hard right turn politically but I’m not up on the details... I recall some oddly sexist (and worst of all unfunny) political cartoons and their owner or editor or someone came out and defended some of Tr*mp’s more ludicrous takes.

It's not just the political stuff, he treats the employees like garbage

 

[HandshakeLine]

It's not just the political stuff, he treats the employees like garbage

And also just the simple quality of local coverage (not just sports) has dropped. I was an avid PG reader up until I left for Chicago in the late 90s, and even THEN, I'd still read as often as I could because its local coverage was way better than the Trib's. Hell, even during the Bush years, the editorial pages were pretty diverse and interesting.

Block essentially destroyed a great, historic newspaper and apparently has only gotten worse in the last few years. I hope it burns when he pisses for the rest of his days.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Yeah. That's very true. Political stuff aside, the general quality of the paper has dropped fairly significantly the last few years. I used to follow it back in the day, as well. Haven't for a while.

 

[Joejosh999]

Yeah such a shame the original owners were good but the sons are moronic. Hard right. Love Trump. Fired the cartoonist who’d been there years and won awards cos he was a tad too liberal. Stopped my subscript ages ago. A real shame tho. Grew up w that paper.

 

[billybudd]

There's no business model for newspapers, short of state-owned (which isn't a business model, per se). Of course the quality of coverage is dropping.

I don't know anything about the owners of the PG (or about the previous owners of the PG), but there's not going to be anything any owner can do to stop this slide. It's a dead medium.

It was proposed that digital could cut the overhead, so venture capitalists funded that, but digital's model depended on psychological manipulation ("viral content" or "hatebait," depending on your relationship to its creation), which only works for as long as Facebook's algorithm wants it to work. Facebook changed their algorithm, and now all those outlets are dying too.

I don't know what the answer to this is. You could try banning Facebook and Google (who gobble up some unGodly percentage of ad revenue, which could otherwise go to newspapers), but other ad middlemen would just take their place. Every local newspaper can't have its own complex data operation with which they can present tailor-made products to an ad buyer.

The PG is just going to end one day in the next decade. Doesn't matter who's running it, what their policies are or how they treat their employees.

 

[heysmilinstrange]

From Rob Rossi's latest article about the Penguins getting offense from their blue line:

For only the third time since the 1994-95 season, three defensemen scored goals in a regular-season game for the Penguins. Four defensemen have never scored in the same regular-season game.

Four goals from Penguins’ defensemen in a single contest had happened only three previous times in the regular season, and not since Dec. 26, 1990.

“I didn’t know that,” Letang said Sunday, lamenting his failure to record a first hat trick late into an empty net.
The way he is producing, Letang probably will finally turn that trick.

Maybe I'm just being immature, but this is not the definition of turning tricks I'm familiar with.

 

[ncm7772]

Boo hoo I’m a millionaire hockey player who just lays down in the face of adversity.

In the end it’s his fault. Yeah, he’s not going to get the minutes he’s used to but he could’ve... ya know... done SOMETHING with the minutes he did get. Maybe 50-60 points is unrealistic, but is 40? Playing with Kessel most of the time, to boot.

He came here, wasn’t getting the minutes he wanted, got the boo boo face, and now he’s “free” in Florida. **** him.

Yup. That last sentence sums up my feelings succinctly on Brassard.

Sheahan, eh. I think he's mentally weak, but I don't have any ill will towards him.

 

[Rossi Rat]

Not considered media (pretty sure he’s making a **** ton of money in his main career) but cool to see Derek of the original PensBlog randomly out and tweeting again.

 

[TNT87]

Madden's article in the Trib about the Gudbranson deal is ridiculous. He thinks it's no big deal that the Penguins acquired him and it's inconsequential. Two more years at f***ing $4 million isn't inconsequential for one of the worst d-men in the league you idiotic blob.

That's two minutes of my life I will never get back by reading his drivel.

 

[Rossi Rat]

I actually sort of get where Madden is coming from with all the so-called advanced metrics geeks jumping out of the woodwork and being so critical all the time about GMJR.

Objectively speaking though, yes, it's not just about the fact they didn't get up much/it's a depth player, because on paper... that much money for that level of defenseman, when you already have Jack Johnson, just doesn't seem good. And some of the criticisms of JR now are certainly warranted.

I can get on board with this take from him, though:

"Don't blame GMJR b/c Malkin& Kessel are a combined -35 &b/c Murray can't stop ground balls."

There are still other issues beyond the GM's moves.

Missing the playoffs this year just would be the perfect storm of under-performing players, a stubborn coach, iffy goaltending and some questionable GM moves.

 

[heysmilinstrange]

My question with Madden is why he seems to have the emotional restraint of a 13-year-old. He's posted dozens of tweets in the past few days where he appears to be attacking straw-man arguments. Even if they're real arguments that people are tweeting him, why doesn't he just ignore some of them, especially because he's so rich and successful and smart and a Blush VIP or whatever?

 

[The Old Master]

i'm waiting for the hit piece on the guy's we traded.

 

[Rossi Rat]

My question with Madden is why he seems to have the emotional restraint of a 13-year-old. He's posted dozens of tweets in the past few days where he appears to be attacking straw-man arguments. Even if they're real arguments that people are tweeting him, why doesn't he just ignore some of them, especially because he's so rich and successful and smart and a Blush VIP or whatever?

Eh, there's a pretty strong crowd on Twitter that's very gung-ho against this trade/GMJR in general. The "hoi polloi", Ryan Wilson, Adam Gretz, PensBlog/former PensBlog guys, Matt Gajtka, that Alan Saunders dude (DK castaway that writes for that Mike Toucan Sam (or w/e the hell his name is)'s site), etc.

Agreed regardless with Madden, I still typically enjoy his show as it's good background noise at work and much better than the clowns on the Fan, but that's how he is. Has the tough guy/Ric Flair wannabe schtick on the radio, but in reality, he searches his name on Twitter and reads numerous message boards to find people talking about him. In fact, he just pointed out on his show something that somebody brought up on another Penguins message board's Pittsburgh Sports Media thread

Hi Mark!

 

[Turin]

I actually sort of get where Madden is coming from with all the so-called advanced metrics geeks jumping out of the woodwork and being so critical all the time about GMJR.

Objectively speaking though, yes, it's not just about the fact they didn't get up much/it's a depth player, because on paper... that much money for that level of defenseman, when you already have Jack Johnson, just doesn't seem good. And some of the criticisms of JR now are certainly warranted.

I can get on board with this take from him, though:

"Don't blame GMJR b/c Malkin& Kessel are a combined -35 &b/c Murray can't stop ground balls."

There are still other issues beyond the GM's moves.

Missing the playoffs this year just would be the perfect storm of under-performing players, a stubborn coach, iffy goaltending and some questionable GM moves.

Why?

Pens had good advanced stats and won two Cups, now their metrics are shit and the team is unfun and not in the playoffs. Maybe JR should listen.

 

[orby]

Eh, there's a pretty strong crowd on Twitter that's very gung-ho against this trade/GMJR in general. The "hoi polloi", Ryan Wilson, Adam Gretz, PensBlog/former PensBlog guys, Matt Gajtka, that Alan Saunders dude (DK castaway that writes for that Mike Toucan Sam (or w/e the hell his name is)'s site), etc.

Agreed regardless with Madden, I still typically enjoy his show as it's good background noise at work and much better than the clowns on the Fan, but that's how he is. Has the tough guy/Ric Flair wannabe schtick on the radio, but in reality, he searches his name on Twitter and reads numerous message boards to find people talking about him. In fact, he just pointed out on his show something that somebody brought up on another Penguins message board's Pittsburgh Sports Media thread

Hi Mark!

I once brought up Mark Madden disparagingly in a random twitter conversation with someone, and he responded to the the tweet to admonish me...at like 6 AM. I tweeted back "you search for your own name on Twitter at 6:00 AM" and he blocked me.

 

[Pens x]

Why?

Pens had good advanced stats and won two Cups, now their metrics are **** and the team is unfun and not in the playoffs. Maybe JR should listen.

There are so many idiots that just won’t criticize Rutherford or Sullivan because we won 2 cups two years ago. These same clowns will be spewing the same crap in 2 years from now.

 

[StaalForOne]

Why?

Pens had good advanced stats and won two Cups, now their metrics are **** and the team is unfun and not in the playoffs. Maybe JR should listen.

I'm going off memory here, but I don't think they did for the second run.

 

[Turin]

I'm going off memory here, but I don't think they did for the second run.

They didn’t have a good CF but their Fenwick and GF was good.

 

[Pens x]

I actually sort of get where Madden is coming from with all the so-called advanced metrics geeks jumping out of the woodwork and being so critical all the time about GMJR.

Objectively speaking though, yes, it's not just about the fact they didn't get up much/it's a depth player, because on paper... that much money for that level of defenseman, when you already have Jack Johnson, just doesn't seem good. And some of the criticisms of JR now are certainly warranted.

I can get on board with this take from him, though:

"Don't blame GMJR b/c Malkin& Kessel are a combined -35 &b/c Murray can't stop ground balls."

There are still other issues beyond the GM's moves.

Missing the playoffs this year just would be the perfect storm of under-performing players, a stubborn coach, iffy goaltending and some questionable GM moves.

If missing the playoffs means JR and/or Sully are fired, sign me up.

Hopefully ownership learned to not blindly stick with management personnel/coaches when things clearly aren’t working...again

 

[cookthebooks]

dont have the link handy but omg the pg on dan potash is faaaaaaaaaantastic

 

[Randy Butternubs]

dont have the link handy but omg the pg on dan potash is faaaaaaaaaantastic

Dan Potash's fun-loving style endears him to Penguins fans and players alike

 

[Beauner]

I don't have a subscription, but from the preview of this article, Sidney Crosby is still viewed as the best player in the game among 200 players interviewed.

The 2019 NHL Poll: Best player? Most overrated? Players...