Exactly my thoughts, if Crew fans are waiting for someone to be overly critical it willm likely be Hunter. It isnt Merz's job.
Absolutely. That's fine I just don't think you can expect Merz to write a four page opinion piece on what's wrong with the Crew. Besides, Zman already answered that question in song. Everything.
The problem isn't even that Merz writes opinion pieces as well (Crew Review, and the report card articles), it's that seemingly in his daily pieces he seems to offer conflicting opinions.
If that's the case (and being an editor I don't disagree with you), then Merz shouldn't be writing anything that contains a semblance of an opinion. He shouldn't even be writing that Andrulis is a nice guy. Strip it all out and have him focus entirely on game coverage, notebooks, etc.
You are an editor who doesn't understand the difference between reporting and Editorials? I realize that line has become very blurred in recent years, but balance and real facts are a staple of reporting and people (CBS news staff etc.) get fired and sued for confusing reporting, editorials, and propaganda. Most professional reporters are VERY careful to label opinion and judgements as "Editorial" comments. Columns are .....Editorials meant to give opinion on "some" facts and thereby create controversy/discussion. Propaganda is the result of pretending to report while actually editorializing. The people you mention are written entertainers - not reporters.
Took my father-in-law to the game. He is from Liecestershire, UK. Took him to the 2002 LAmar Cup Semi, saw a great game infront of <2,000 fans. Thought this time I'd get a good crowd if nothing else. Didn't even get that. He compared the Crew to a 1st Division team, and I had no response. He picked up that we played a true back four that were not allowed to press into the attack, and that no player on the team took the chance to play 100% except Henderson. I had no response. He said he saw why it was a struggle to build a fanbase in the States. No response. We explained the game to my wife, she said that is why she doesn't go to the games. No reply. So pretty much I've been trained to be a player for the Crew, or at least I'm ready for a press conference. I don't care what the Crew do, it is not my job to fix it, but I am only planning on using my two remaining vouchers this year, and going to the US match. The best laid plans of mice and McCullers haven't been able to keep my enthusiasm at the level needed to shell out the money to take the family to a game, even if my son loves it, on student loan money. I support the team, but if it is Andrulius, McCullers, or ridding of the Crewzers, something has to happen to draw back the fans.
When I go to a restaurant and have what seems to me to be a lousy, overpriced meal that I don't enjoy at all, it would be absurd to have the Maitre D or the food critic for the local newspaper give me a lecture about how I don't know anything about the restaurant business, am not qualified to criticize the chef and should just shut up and come back next week. Don't worry, there are real professionals running the place, and they understand the problems and you don't. How dare an ignoramus who has never run a restuarant or been a chef claim they don't like the food? Ridiculous, guys. We're the customers and we don't like the product. It's YOU who don't "get it" not us. We "get it" just fine.
Hold up here, amigo. Before you decide to cross that line and call me unprofessional (instead of merely hinting at it), let it be noted we're debating a particular area, which is the Crew Review. If you want Merz to just be a reporter who writes game stories and so forth, then Crew Review needs to be devoid of *any* opinion or editorializing. Using Crew Review to say Andrulis is a nice guy, or to suggest the team doesn't take PKs seriously is definitely blurring the line between reporting and editorial. He can't get inside the players' heads to determine if they take PKs seriously or not. It's why I was taught never to write that someone "believes" something, because you can't be 100% sure of that. It means that Merz has to write stories that say little more than who played and who scored. Because to say the team played like ******** (for example) is a totally subjective exercise. Of course, the flip side to not writing something like that is to set up Merz for another round of "Crew Boy Craig" jibes.
Could we all at least agree that the Crewzers are the most improved part of the organization over last year! How did they upgrade so much in one season?
Couldn't agree more. With few exceptions this season, the Crewzers are a huge upgrade over years past.
If you are an editor, or even a keen observer of modern "journalism", then you ought to know what bunk this is. "Reporting" went to hell when they stopped hiring people who had a decent education and could write and instead started hiring "J-School" grads who know nothing about anything, can't write a decent sentece to save their lives and are stuffed full of their own importance by a bunch of abject failures masquerading as "Professors", who teach them that they are next to G*d, above the law, extra-constitutional and that their job is not to print "facts" but rather to print "the truth". And them publishers just can't figure out why no one wants to buy their product any more. As for Merz, his job is complicated by the fact that he's the only "beat writer" the Crew has, the only beat writer covering the Crew for the only paper in town and, in fact, the only "beat writer" the Crew has EVER had. He started out ten years ago obviously knowing nothing and caring less about soccer or the Crew. It was a job and, like Jamie Rootes and Jim Smith and everyone else connected with the team then and since, it was a "minor league" assignemnt intended to pad his resume against the day when he - and they - could get a "real" job working a sport he didn't have to apologize for or explain away at high school reunions. "So, what do you do these days, Craig?" I'm a sportswriter for a major daily paper" "Really! Wow, how cool! What team do you cover?" "Uh, well, see, right now I'm covering the Columbus Crew - they're a soccer team - but that's only for now. They've promised me I can start doing some Ohio State stuff in a year or two" "Wow! Ohio State! That's great!" For years he mailed it in - he put stuff under his byline that was clearly hot off the fax machine from Velma Ave. He went through the motions and never, ever even came close to expressing an opinion, largely because, frankly, I don't think he had one. But he's been doing it now for a decade and a couple things are clear: he knows and has heard more about the Crew, the players and what's gone on over there than any other human, and he's beginning to get fed up with some of what he sees. And he's STILL the only beat writer covering the Crew. As a result, he has to do the straight stuff but he ALSO is the only person in a position to express an opinion. They fudge it sometimes by having snippets appear in Bob Hunter's column, like, "Yeah, so I took a break from my daily OSU (pick-a-sport) Buffet luncheon to wander over to Hunt Park where a bunch of people who barely know my name unburdened the deepest darkest secrets of the Columbus Crew." Yeah, Bob. Right. Sure they did. It couldn't have been Merz, the guy who works for you, who gave you that juicy bit could it? When there's only one writer and only one paper, sometimes the roles HAVE to get muddied. I think they do a good job separating the two, but it's a lot more complicated in this case than just reading a couple definitions and rules of thumb from some cheesy J-School primer.
While I do think the Crew Review is set up to be a recap of the game with some subjective content, I agree with JasonC that it is blurring the line and is exactly what has us in this debate. With all the crap journalists have gotten themselves into these days with stretching stories and editorializing, etc. it is senseless to continue to print something like the Crew Review without explaining that it is not necessarily a news story and not necessarily an opionion piece. IMHO there should be some disclaimer of some sort labeling what exactly the Crew Review is. Of course maybe I'm wrong and maybe it is a straight opinion piece or straight news piece. But again if it is that's the whole problem because I don't know for sure. Bill, your sentiments are why I don't like endorsing candidates during election time either. It seems rather puffed up for a newspaper to say vote for these guys, we know better. Somtimes we may know the candidates better than the average Joe or Jane, but that doesn't mean we know they'll be a better office holder. Mostly it comes across to readers as taking one political side over the other and most studies show readers could care less what the newspaper thinks. They vote how they want to. They're the taxpayer.
I agree that Craig may be the only person in a position to express an opinion on the Crew, but guess what that doesn't mean that opinion should be put into a Crew recap that's not specifically an opinion piece. Just because it seems to be your only option doesn't mean you should do it. The thing is most editorials are done by editorial writers after gathering information from the beat reporter and reading that reporter's stories. Sometimes the editorial writers (at least at my paper) do do some research of their own and add that information to the opinion piece. So it's not entirely fair to say Merz has no option but to inject some subjective information into Crew Reviews. Of course, with the Dispatch being Ohio's Progressive Paper, maybe they're forging some new kind of journalism. Like hey we acknowledge that most reporters can't remain 100 percent unbiased so we'll go ahead and make it obvious and not even try.
Ok, but when Merz wrote that "It's apparent the GM Mark McCullers will have to do something by the end of the month if there isn't a turn-around... There's no magic number, but a good guess is that the Crew must win at least two for Andrulis to stay on..." what did he mean? Who was this apparent to? Was this news, gossip, a leak from McCullers, or just personal speculation? If no one can say for sure, why bother reading it at all?
So let me get this straight, Crew Fans just this week alone by the Columbus Dispatch have been called "Classless" and "Idiots." Nice. And they wonder why I won't even buy a Sunday subscribtion and I asked to be put on their no call list.
OK, that's a fair point. "It's apparent" seems to me (but it's just me since we don't know) to be a writer's device. You see them all to often in news stories lately, stuff like: "some observers have said..." and "experts claim..." and " many people in a position to know..." followed by personal opinion. It's not even claiming an "unnamed source" or "a highly placed soource within the organization". "It's apparent" can mean alomst anything, including "I guess". Like I said, fair point.
Bill Urban strikes again. This is from an article re: Steve Sampson quotes. http://www.ussoccerplayers.com/exclusives/482577.html
What he said. Why does the Dispatch has one beat writer expected to provide both facts and opinions? It wouldn't have anything to do with keeping up the 25-30 percent profit margins all too common in this industry, would it? Odds are the newspaper I just left won't be replacing me. They've split up what were my responsibilities and given them to other people there. Hey, person leaves and it's another way to cut the budget.