Shoddy Reporting at Wash. Times: (Formerly "Times blames Zack; Ray blames the fans")

Misquoting in the Times? Unheard of!
What a mess of an article. Pathetic.

 

Whomever talked you out of doing that is a reasonable person.

I am glad you listened, it shows you are an intelligent man.

Life is tough. But it could be worse (much much worse), one could be a Metrostars fan!

DC United will be back with a vengance!

 

Damn...

That didn't take very long....

 

It has been obvious for some time now that Ken Wright has a personal vendetta against someone at United. The week before he wrote a horrendous piece on the Quintanillia signing entitled "DC United hopes Salvadorian will boost gate".

In it Wright misquoted Zack from BS.com hand selecting the parts where Zack mentioned our attendance difficulties. He did not bother to mention Zack's defenses of the accusations of pandering. And in an article allegedly at least in part about our new player he wrote entirely about attendance issues. The lowest point coming where he dug into the archives to find quotes from 1999 and the victims of "the stabbing" incident... I am for covering all sides but next time he chooses to write something like this you think he might TRY to contact the teams front office for comments as opposed to lifting something from the f-ing internet.

The Times is not bad, Haydon is excellent. Its apparent that Wright is just a hack with a chip on his shoulder...

 

> "After the game, Hudson criticized United's fans."

If the guy is incapable of understanding Ray, he should not try to interpret him. From reading the transcript of the press conference on Unitedmania, Ray's point is pretty obvious... and very obviously lost on Ken Wright.

 

Someone might want to change the title of this thread. Some people might see the title, not bother to read the thread, and come away with the impression that Ray really did blame the fans...

 

Thank you.

 

Send the Times and email and let them know what you think.

From the Times online:
webeditor@washingtontimes.com
If you have questions or comments about the content of the site (articles, photos, etc.), contact Christopher Wavrin, the Web Editor.

 

Thank you.

 

Done.

 

OK, let's get a few things straight.

1) No Urine Bag Comments! Eliseo came and proved that he DESERVED to be on this team by his performance both on and off the field. AND, the El Salvador fans supported him AND UNITED loudly and politely. Give them their props and keep the hateful comments to yourself!

2) No matter how bad the refs are (and they've been pretty unkind to United this season) we treat them with respect. We're a class group of fans in a class league ... let's act like it.

3) There are two reason that the refs do not give us any breaks, because Hudson has a reputation for encoraging chippy play, and because we have no "glitter." Great players (Donovan, Mathis, Twellman) get calls, great teams (like the old United) get calls, but a bottom dwelling team with Villegas isn't going to get many calls. Frankly, I'm pleasantly surprised at how successful Chino has been drawing free kicks!

4) Ray's Fusion solidified it's reputation as a chippy team when they played the eQuakes. McKinley and Bishop were known to be a bit fiesty, but after that game most refs kinda had a negative attitude towards Ray's teams. I've heard that from too many people to doubt it. When he arrived in DC his non-MLS games were marred (incorrectly) by many cards. Lazo, McKinley, Santino and Reyes were all gathing cards at alarming rates. We became known as the chippiest team in the league. While McKinley, Lazo and Ritchie remain, we will continue to get very few calls. Gazza's presence may actually change that, because of his world-renown class on the field.

5) Any publicity is good publicity. And, controversy attracts attention. While we may not agree with Mr. Wright's approach or his opinion, we should all be glad that he's covering United, and we should not get bent out of shape if he reports about a controversy that doesn't really exist.

-Tron

 

Disagree entirely.

The Zack stuff at the top was crap which had NOTHING to do with the game. Mis-quoting Hudson was, well, awful. If you can't understand the words when they come out of his mouth, Ken, then maybe you're in the wrong profession.

Bitching to the Times won't do any good. Rev. Moon doesn't read the sports pages.

 

Absolutely agreed. Too bad we didn't give them more to cheer for.

This one I'm not so sure about. As badly as they perfromed, I hope they had a driver as they would cause any number of wrecks up and down 395. They deserve as much abuse as we can throw at them.

Have to disagree here. We should always call out reporters when they get the story wrong. And Zack deserves our defense. He's been very positive and supportive during a tough stretch. Now all we have to do is convince him to buy La Norte beer the way Wilt buys beer in Chicago for Section 8.

Sachin

 

Title...

The title still is misleading on this thread... Ken Wright is the only one doing a lousy job there (well maybe his editor if he even cares to read his drivel...) --John Haydon has written a lot of accurate and interesting articles this year so their coverage has been pretty good for the most part. Our gripe is not really with the paper (if your objective that is...) it is with Wright specifically and his poor journalistic skills. Someone needs to tell the prick if we wanted his opinions we would ask for them. Until then he should take a refresher course on reporting.