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

[Gurglesons]

PPG was nice when I visited. But nothing like the Civic.

 

[billybudd]

I think Dejan writes too much gossipy stuff, like on Phil...I don’t really like those hit pieces...

While I despise the nature of clickbait media and think all of its practitioners are deeply unethical, a lot of the fault with this particular issue lies with the Penguins, who never miss an opportunity to (anonymously) kick a guy on the way out the door. Dejan (or Madden or Kingerski) may be committing journalistic fraud when he prints unsubstantiated (and suspiciously convenient) rumors from anonymous people about the latest popular player shipped out of town, but he's not the one starting the rumors, the Penguins are.

In most cases, I've even agreed with the necessity of trading these guys, but I don't need the conspiracy theories about the player's character or life situation--ever.

 

[billybudd]

I don’t know why they made some of the concourses so narrow at PPG. It can be a real pain navigating during intermissions.

I don’t know if I miss the Civic arena or just those teams from the 1990’s. I do like the amenities in the club seats much better now and the boxes are great.

I'll tell you what I miss. Being a 16 year old kid on the smoker's terrace at intermission and seeing Ivan Hlinka out there puffing away like it was normal for a coach to be doing that during a game.

 

[HandshakeLine]

I'll tell you what I miss. Being a 16 year old kid on the smoker's terrace at intermission and seeing Ivan Hlinka out there puffing away like it was normal for a coach to be doing that during a game.

Heh, I used to see Robert Lang doing that on off days in various bars 0n Carson.

 

[Don'tcry4mejanhrdina]

Heh, I used to see Robert Lang doing that on off days in various bars 0n Carson.

And yet despite being a smoker he was a very late bloomer. You'd think years of smoking wouldn't help him break out and hit his peak after 30.

 

[Mario_is_BACK!!]

Lmao

 

[Gurglesons]

While I despise the nature of clickbait media and think all of its practitioners are deeply unethical, a lot of the fault with this particular issue lies with the Penguins, who never miss an opportunity to (anonymously) kick a guy on the way out the door. Dejan (or Madden or Kingerski) may be committing journalistic fraud when he prints unsubstantiated (and suspiciously convenient) rumors from anonymous people about the latest popular player shipped out of town, but he's not the one starting the rumors, the Penguins are.

In most cases, I've even agreed with the necessity of trading these guys, but I don't need the conspiracy theories about the player's character or life situation--ever.

It is definitely bizarre consider its an org that prides itself on its connections in the community and with the players.

 

[Turin]

I think there’s a clear and pretty gross political wing with Burkle and Morehouse. The more respectable part of the org I’d guess stems from Lemieux and a few other tenured guys. That’s just me guessing, though.

 

[billybudd]

I think there’s a clear and pretty gross political wing with Burkle and Morehouse. The more respectable part of the org I’d guess stems from Lemieux and a few other tenured guys. That’s just me guessing, though.

The issue isn't political, per se, but in an approach to branding that has its genesis in the political sphere (don't confuse this with indicting a particular political party for the practice--it's a thing that dates at least as far back as the City-State of Athens). A politician can successfully be professionally disappeared from public consciousness due to nothing more than whisper campaigns (Gary Condit and Jack Ryan would be two examples of public servants who experienced this).

It's a pretty scummy thing to do to politicians, but I like it even less when a dumb kid like Despres or a media clueless like Phil Kessel gets blindsided by this tactic solely to make the job of a PR staff 3% easier for a few weeks.

I don't need the Penguins to launder gossip that Phil Kessel spends a lot of time at the Meadows. **** anyone who tries to tell me that. There's no justification for this cowardly sort of filth. You look like a bag of ***holes for saying it.

Just say he's getting older and you don't want to be the guy holding the contract paper when the legs go--and then put your name on the quote. I'll understand completely. Hell, I'll even back you on it.

 

[billybudd]

I'm dreading what the Penguins will say about Galchenyuk through their cutouts if they don't like his contract ask down the road.

 

[HandshakeLine]

It's certainly a problem @billybudd , but we should remember that it's a problem precisely because a not-insignificant portion of the fans eat it up and live for it.

Sports media is toxic, and it's gotten so because its consumers want it to be.

 

[billybudd]

It's certainly a problem @billybudd , but we should remember that it's a problem precisely because a not-insignificant portion of the fans eat it up and live for it.

Sports media is toxic, and it's gotten so because its consumers want it to be.

Yeah. There's no National Enquirerization of sports without a reader reading it. No question. That it happened is also the fault of us fans, too.

But I can still detest the unethicality of everybody involved on the production end. The fans are mindlessly consuming it, without thinking about the implications (most people have other things to think about than what it says about the Penguins that they told everybody Despres was traded because he ate twinkies, instead of just saying "hey, we know he's popular, but he's inconsistent and the other guy's right-handed"), but the Penguins do think about it and do it, anyway.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Yeah. There's no National Enquirerization of sports without a reader reading it. No question. That it happened is also the fault of us fans, too.

But I can still detest the unethicality of everybody involved on the production end. The fans are mindlessly consuming it, without thinking about the implications (most people have other things to think about than what it says about the Penguins that they told everybody Despres was traded because he ate twinkies, instead of just saying "hey, we know he's popular, but he's inconsistent and the other guy's right-handed"), but the Penguins do think about it and do it, anyway.

I hate to be so cynical but people are just big dumb panicky animals, mostly. And obviously it's on the viewer or listener of garbage media that is inexplicably popular... I mean... SOMEBODY is buying this shit. But owing to the above it's still kind of reprehensible to, well... take advantage of the fact that people are mostly big stupid panicky animals.

There are a lot of problems in the world currently stemming from this. Come to think of it.

 

[billybudd]

I hate to be so cynical but people are just big dumb panicky animals, mostly. And obviously it's on the viewer or listener of garbage media that is inexplicably popular... I mean... SOMEBODY is buying this ****. But owing to the above it's still kind of reprehensible to, well... take advantage of the fact that people are mostly big stupid panicky animals.

There are a lot of problems in the world currently stemming from this. Come to think of it.

Much as I appreciate the truth in Tommy Lee Jones's MiB speech (and I'll note the first part of that speech, where "a person is smart" is also true), I prefer to just think of people as too busy with their own business to consider the motivations which produced whatever salacious gossip shows up in their twitter feed or on the radio

If you ask someone who starts a conversation with "Hey, so I guess Kessel was traded because he has a gambling problem" "how they know that," "who would tell the person they heard it from" and "why," it doesn't take long for them to work out that it's self-serving horse **** served up by Pens PR. It just wasn't important enough to their lives for them to think about it that way.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Much as I appreciate the truth in Tommy Lee Jones's MiB speech (and I'll note the first part of that speech, where "a person is smart" is also true), I prefer to just think of people as too busy with their own business to consider the motivations which produced whatever salacious gossip shows up in their twitter feed or on the radio

If you ask someone who starts a conversation with "Hey, so I guess Kessel was traded because he has a gambling problem" "how they know that," "who would tell the person they heard it from" and "why," it doesn't take long for them to work out that it's self-serving horse **** served up by Pens PR. It just wasn't important enough to their lives for them to think about it that way.

Wish I could find my optimism again. I used to say "most people are stupid" and kinda laugh it off. But I absolutely believe it, now.

Either way I completely agree with what you are driving at. It's some low class shit.

 

[KIRK]

I'm dreading what the Penguins will say about Galchenyuk through their cutouts if they don't like his contract ask down the road.

He's a UFA after the season. I don't think the usual formula will apply. But, if it comes to it, they'll dump on him for being a disappointment.

 

[HandshakeLine]

I think it's even more malevolent than that. I think most people just want to see other people suffer, so that's what's gonna sell, and the sports media industry has pretty much just gone all in on dumb fluff stories and tabloid journalism. Fans don't really care about it until the knives come for a fan favorite and then I hear the screeching from Carson Street all the way across the ocean.



That's the only thing I can give the stats crew credit for-- at least, it's all about numbers. Numbers that don't always say what we say they do, but it's not about personality, or entertainment at all.

 

[Gurglesons]

He's a UFA after the season. I don't think the usual formula will apply. But, if it comes to it, they'll dump on him for being a disappointment.

Likely while romanticizing Phil.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I think it's even more malevolent than that. I think most people just want to see other people suffer, so that's what's gonna sell, and the sports media industry has pretty much just gone all in on dumb fluff stories and tabloid journalism. Fans don't really care about it until the knives come for a fan favorite and then I hear the screeching from Carson Street all the way across the ocean.



That's the only thing I can give the stats crew credit for-- at least, it's all about numbers. Numbers that don't always say what we say they do, but it's not about personality, or entertainment at all.

Yeah, I can buy that too. Just good ol' fashioned rubbernecking.

Maybe people aren't QUITE as dumb as I think they are. But they sure are predictable. And often spiteful.

 

[HandshakeLine]

Ask any historian of the last 100 years how people are, Willy, and you're not going to get a pretty answer.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Ask any historian of the last 100 how people are, Willy, and you're not going to get a pretty answer.

I think that's part of my problem.

Studied entirely too much history all through school. Never did anything with it, really. Just enjoyed the whole "ability to roughly predict the future" thing.

 

[Turin]

There’s also the bad news that IQs are dropping around the world. So we need to bank as many Cups as we can before we’re too dumb to do dumb stuff like spend free time on sports.

 

[Rossi Rat]

Lmao

MM back on Twitter calling Cervelli a gutless liar and defending his buddy DK, lol

 

[HandshakeLine]

Nothing is sadder than old men having Twitter feuds.

 

[Rossi Rat]

Nothing is sadder than old men having Twitter feuds.

Even if Cervelli is lying and that seems to be the thought, it’s just stupid how much silly drama there is between the Pgh media. Rob Biertempfel was going back and forth with Madden a bit too. Are they still in high school, or 30-40 years removed?