Why the Quakes won’t (and shouldn’t) buy out Simon Dawkins BY COLIN ETNIRE · FEBRUARY 2, 2018 This guy is the f***ing worst...
I don't get what he's trying to say. Is he trying to say that the Quakes would have to pay Dawkins's $800k salary twice if they were to buy him out? That doesn't make sense to me.
This is what I heard Etnire say: "I’d also like to take this opportunity to reject a common trope I see on the message boards or on twitter: the Quakes are not cheap." Which left me wondering, what's the difference between a trope and a meme? And why is Etnire rejecting a self-evident truth?
"As nouns the difference between meme and trope is that meme is any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another in a comparable way to the transmission of genes while trope is (literature) something recurring across a genre or type of literature, such as the ‘mad scientist’ of horror movies or ‘once upon a time’ as an introduction to fairy tales similar to archetype and but not necessarily pejorative." https://wikidiff.com/meme/trope Clear as mud.
I don't commonly use the word "trope" but when I do it is on a message board discussing how cheap the Quakes are to charge me $15 for printed season tickets.
https://www.sjearthquakes.com/post/2018/02/16/news-earthquakes-simon-dawkins-mutually-part-ways finally! .
It's a "common trope" of mine that the media propagate Fake News (and use fancy words while doing so). Two full weeks before this misinformation was disproven.
It wasn't misinformation, it was a dumb opinion expressed by some random guy who has a lot of dumb opinions about the Quakes*. And he's hardly "the media"... it's some crap blog. *The fact that no one can be bothered to do so is the only reason we don't have a humiliating compilation of every Colin Etnire article from the last few years fawning over all Quakes draft picks and signings, saying that the team is going to be really good every season, praising the Doyle/Kinnear brain trust, etc. At least Baghdad Bob was getting paid by Saddam Hussein to sling his BS!
The headline says "won't (and shouldn't)." "Shouldn't" is a dumb opinion. "Won't" is misinformation disproven by today's events.
Right, but the only difference between that and some statement made by me is that I'm doing it on BigSoccer instead of creating some dumb blog. If I write "The Quakes won't (and shouldn't) make any more roster moves" in a comment here on BigSoccer, and then two weeks later the Quakes sign Player X to a first team contract, that isn't so much "media misinformation" as it is "random guy makes statement that ends up being wrong." And in the case of Colin Etnire, almost everything he says is wrong. I mean he was probably typing that up at the same time the Quakes front office was working on the Dawkins contract buy out...
Shouldn't be a surprise, already predicted here. They needed to buy at least the one international slot, which even if available would have cost probably north of $200k. Plus they still needed to buy down a DP slot (at least $300k). And by ditching the baggage they get $400k of budget relief on salary. So a total net plus to the salary budget of $900k at a cost to the owners of $800k. It's a no brainer as the first priority as far as "investment" by the ownership should always be in the team itself and in this case it is actually accretive.
I believe Etnire has (or had at one time) a media credential. It's becoming increasingly hard to distinguish between people with inside knowledge posting on the internet (often anonymously) and mainstream media reports, especially those that rely on single (often anonymous) sources.
People with blogs and podcasts can get their own media credentials. Which is fine, good actually. MLS teams want and need more coverage. The mainstream media barely covers soccer (just look at the sad state of soccer coverage here in the bay area), you've got a bunch of entrenched old dudes in newsrooms who think the only real sports worthy of their time are baseball, football, basketball, and maybe the Olympics. So alternatives are needed (including the league site). But there's going to be plenty of good and bad in any case, instead of complaining about Colin Etnire I'd be complaining about Bill Plaschke. And the bottom line is it's working out quite well, all of this alternative media stuff is the best way to reach younger people, even if it doesn't move the needle with those age 50+... recent Gallup poll data:
I'm all for alternative media. But I think as a baseline, reporting facts ("won't" is purporting to report facts) should be based on two independent disclosed sources, or not reported. When corners are cut to provide news based on a single and/or anonymous source, not only should there be a clearly articulated and defensible rationale for not disclosing the source, but also for not validating the source with a second one, and, most importantly, for why the news value of the story necessitates disseminating it subject to the short-cuts. Unless lives are in the balance, the news report can probably wait for two independent disclosed sources. When Dawkins is no longer on the team, we'll know, as we did today.
In this scenario Nixon would have served out a second term, we might still be fighting in Vietnam, 50% of Americans might still be smokers, etc. A much better solution would be that we should stop calling something "news" if there is not a strong vetting process in the editorial department of the media organization. That still allows some bias but it should also place accountability on the editorial function. Independent media watchdogs can rate the organizations similar to how Consumer Reports rates retail goods.
I made counter arguments to his Simon "won't and shouldn't be bought out" arguments and he 1) falsely accused me of downvoting his posts based on the "evidence" that someone had downvoted his posts , 2) made me out to be a simpleton that just doesn't understand MLS roster rules, and 3) claimed that I didn't understand what "contradiction" means when I pointed out that it was a contradiction to argue, on the one hand, that the Quakes are not cheap while simultaneously saying that the buyout would be too expensive for the club to consider.
The end justifies the means? I would like to know that when I read something in the newspaper I can have confidence it is true because it was subjected to proper vetting. I don't think that is too much to ask. And ethically it is required.
Sorry it didn't work out second time around, but buying out Dawkins seems like a great idea. I also updated a couple of numbers and our rights. ________ Salary Budget Roster 1. Andrew Tarbell #28 (G) {10/7/93} [$94K] 2. Joel Qwiberg #2 (D) {10/09/92} (Columbia, INT) [$???K] 3. Harold Cummings #31 (D) (Panama, INT) {3/1/92} [$300.7K] 4. Francois Affolter #3 (D) (Switzerland, INT) {3/13/91} [$???K] 5. Jimmy Ockford #15 (D) {6/10/92} [$??] 6. Yeferson Quintana #30 (D){4/19/96} [$???] 7. Florian Jungwirth, #23 (D/M) (Germany, INT) {1/27/89} [$516.7K] 8. Fatai Alashe #27 (M) {10/21/93} [$114.4K] 9. Anibal Godoy #30 (M) (Panama, INT}{2/10/90} [$256.2K] 10. Shea Salinas #6 (M) {6/24/86} [$185K*] 11. Jamir Hyka #10 (M) (Albania, INT) {3/8/88} [$520K] 12. Danny Hoesen #9 (F) (Netherlands, INT) {1/15/91} [$503.1K] 13. Valeri Qazaishvili #11 (M/F) (Georgia, INT) {1/29/93} [$???K] 14. Magnus Eriksson #7(M/F) (Sweden, INT) {4/2/90} [$???K] 15. Chris Wondolowski #8 (F) {1/28/83} [$800?*] 16. Quincy Amarikwa # 25 (F) {10/29/87}[$270.2k] 17. [Empty] 18. [Empty] 19. [Empty] 20. [Empty] * Indicates a known guaranteed contract. Supplemental Roster (Off-Budget-min $65K) 21. Jackson Yueill (M) #14 {3/19/97} [Generation Adidas - $176] 22. Matt Bersano # 35 (G) {9/10/92} [$65] 23. JT Marcinkowski # 18 (G) {5/09/97] [$???K - Homegrown Player] 24. Eric Calvillo # 26 (M) {1/2/98} Reserve Roster (Off-Budget-in $50K, under 25) 25. Luis Felipe # 96 (M) {1/29/96} [$??] 26. Chris Wehan # 16 (M) {1/29/94} [$??] 27. Jacob Akanyirige # 29 (D) {12/31/01} [$???K - Homegrown Player] 28. Gilbert Fuentes # 35 (M) {2/21/02} [$???K - Homegrown Player] Homegrown Players (Additional Reserves Slots) 29. Tommy Tompson (M/F) #22 {8/15/95} [$155K - Homegrown Player] 30. Nick Lima (D) #24 {11/17/94} [$86.2-Homegrown Player] Players in Preseason Camp Paul Marie (D) {3/24/95} Danny Musovski (F) {11/30/95} Mohamad Thiaw (F) {1/24/95} Kevin Partida (M) {3/10/95} CURRENT SALARY TOTAL for 2018 the cap is was approximately $4,035,000, and our overall salary is unknown. Note: Some player's salaries were likely bought down this year with allocation money, and this cost is not represented in the figure above. The 2017 figures above were used to calculate our cap, rounding up to the nearest thousand from the union's released salaries from April 2017. Part of Wondo's salary (TAM) has been bough down and he has since signed a new multi-year contract in 2016. Hyka, Jungwirth & Hoesen signing also used TAM in 2017. Allocations, Slots, Rights, & Trades Allocations ***We received allocation money for Darwin Cerin fron Houston, for David Bingham from LAG and for Urena in the Expansion Draft: $250k in GAM, $175k in TAM, and $100k of conditional GAM in 2019*** Trades, waivers, losses ---* DAWKINS - Contract bought out - 2/16/18 ---* CEREN - to Houston for $175k in allocation money and $50k based on performance - 1/19/18 ---* BINGHAM - to the Galaxy for up to $250k in allocation money - 12/18/17 ---* COLVEY - Selected by Rapids in the Waiver Draft - 12/13/17 ---* MFEKA - Signed by Reno 1868 - 12/13/17 ---* URENA - Selected by LAFC in the Expansion Draft- 12/12/17 ---* FRANCIS - to Montreal for their 2nd round draft pick or $50,000 in GAM. - 7/13/17. ---* General Allocation Money from New England for the 2nd place Allocation spot and either TAM or TAM and GAM for the 2018 season - 7/3/17. Slots ---* DP's - Wondolowski, Qazaishvili, and Eriksson occupy a DP slot, so all slots are currently occupied. ---* We currently have no open INT slots. We have eight slots, and all eight of those slots are occupied and more (Godoy, Cummings, Hyka, Jungwirth, Hoesen, Qazaishvili, Affolter, Qwiberg, Eriksson & Quintana = INT). Rights ---* 12th on the allocation list. ---* All of our 2019 Superdraft picks. ---* All of our 2019 Waiver Draft and Re-Entry Draft picks. ---* Lottery eligible for the 2018 season. ---* We hold Olmes Garcia's MLS rights. ---* Still hold Yannick Djalo's MLS rights. ---* Still hold Jaime Alas' MLS rights. ---* We hold the right to Bryan Jordan, acquired in the re-entry draft on 12/14/12. ---* We hold the rights to these unsigned MLS draftees: Christian Thierjung & Auden Schilder through 2018 and Marie, Musovski, and Thiaw through 2019. Staff * Tom Fox (President) * Jared Shawlee (Chief Operating Officer) * Jesse Fioranelli (General Manager) * Mikael Stahre(Head Coach) * Steve Ralson (Assistant Coach) * Alex Covelo (Assistant Coach) * Alex de Crook (Assistant Coach) * Jyri Nieminen (Goalkeeper Coach) * Chris Leitch (Technical Director) SSVCF SSV centerlinesoccer
Overall I agree vehemently on the unreliability of our current generation of journalists in general. But I also think that there is a responsibility of the reader for critical thinking (and I don't mean to imply anything about yours). I read that article as the author saying 'I predict' SD won't be bought out. You read it as a statement of fact. But I don't think the author ever said he had inside or even anonymous sources to base that on. And even if he did it's still 'heresay' not fact. So in this case you seem to be conflating an opinion piece with factual reporting. Both of which have their place in 'real' journalism. I think the differentiation these days is left much more to the reader than it historically has been.