If Mike Harrington and Paul Hamilton can keep their jobs for 20+ years, there isn't really a high bar of entry into the Buffalo sports media. The pay must be atrocious given how sports crazy the city is.
OT: Local sports coverage talk (the Athletic/Local TV/TBN/WGR/Charging Buffalo/LGA, etc)
- Thread starter sabrebuild
- Start date
If Mike Harrington and Paul Hamilton can keep their jobs for 20+ years, there isn't really a high bar of entry into the Buffalo sports media. The pay must be atrocious given how sports crazy the city is.
Der Jaeger
Generational EBUG
There is a reason I did not get into journalism. Pay is not good for most journalists. Advancing to levels where pay is good takes tremendous effort and time.
I suppose it's a good system, or at least used to be. 30 years ago, a hard working journalist could dig up a story to make a name for himself or herself. That's a good system to keep politicians and corporations honest.
Our professors, mostly former journalists, warned us in the late 90's about the dangers of online media and viewership. They were right. I see journalists looking for clicks, and newsrooms pushing narratives that their viewers want to hear, in the name of Nielsen ratings and memberships.
Being a journalist has to be a calling. Or at least used to be a calling.
Its essentially a dead profession, there's only a handful of people that actually do real journalism anymore.
Der Jaeger
Generational EBUG
At this point, I actually believe the non-professional journalists, who are online. Someone like Chad D breaks as much news as Dreger locally, and far more than Harrington. Also, in the media scrums, it tends to be the bloggers who ask the tougher questions.
joshjull
Registered User
I wasn’t going to respond and further derail the thread when you initially posted this. But since this thread has had a ton of media commentary since, here we go…..
Chad trying to be an insider gets a lot more wrong than right and reports things that can’t be verified. NONE of that is a criticism. It’s the nature of the beast of trying to be an insider and I enjoy when he dabbles in it. But it’s also why its pointless to take what he says as gospel.
My previous post wasn’t talking about his insider status though. It was talking about his habit of being disingenuous with analytics when pushing agendas about certain players (both for and against). I was also chuckling at the idea that his opinion on certain players (like VO) was somehow ahead of the curve. Chad’s a smart guy but give me a break.
brian_griffin
"Eric Cartman?"
Pretty sure Harrington is a union writer (I understand TBN has both, and Harrington's been there ~35 years, so strongly suspect he's union). Likely too young to take a buyout when Sullivan, DiCesare, etc., did a couple years ago. (I'm old enough to retire, but can't afford to - that's what I'm inferring about MH). Assuming he's union, I'm not sure him caught driving drunk with a vanload of dead Laotian hookers and one hundred kilos of blow to a Cooperstown Hall of Fame induction would result in more than a paid day or two off.
debaser66
Registered User
- Mar 10, 2012
- 5,106
- 2,826
You could apply that to anything;
I hardly find anything interesting in trad. Media and its usually some obsessed people who deliver the best result.
I think this level of detail wasnt easy accessible in print only times.
Also its very obvious nowadays which lobbies and political agendas are behind.
It was much more easier in the past to manufacture consent.
I dont consider Chad D to be overly informed in his analytical approach or he does this to garner clicks through neg. attention.
Either way those types dont provide anything interesting to me & I dont support that kind of sensationalism in anyway.
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Der Jaeger
Generational EBUG
The two biggest issues with journalists now are:
- They let their personal opinions weigh into their work
- The people they work for drive narratives
Journalism, at it's heart, is done exactly like science. Eg: I want to find out what is driving the Pegula's finances, and why they spend so much on the Bills and not that much on the Sabres.
I do some initial research, and develop a working hypothesis.
I keep researching. The idea of research isn't to prove my hypothesis as true, but to either prove it true or false. Either is ok.
Then organize the information and write the story.
------
The problem is that most journalists come into a situation with pre-conceived notions of what's happening. While I was in Afghanistan, I talked to a lot of journalists. 16 different journalists. 15 had a narrative (support for the war, against the war). Nothing I said could get them to change their mind. Only a German reporter who was covering the war for a small new outlet was objective.
Djp
Registered User
I foresaw that happening 8n the mid 90s because the internet connected people over territories thst before were carved out by local jornalists.
and with other fields…how much does experience matter in the work? Can you replace a 50 yr old with a 25 yr old with some experience and who being younger, is more relatable to the athletes.
on your last part.analytics can be used as a sword to push an agenda by designing the metric to inflate biases.
he came in when union was strong. He’s still about 5 yrs from retirement age. I think he’s around my age in early/ mid 50s. I don’t know what pension age is (57, 60?)
the other factor in Harrington is he covers multiple sports and not say strictly the Sabres beat writer.
I work for the fed govt. if they had a situation where a military base was closing or they were doing a reorg and decided to close say the buffalo regional office thry woukd say those with 20 yrs of service and 50+ yrs old can start full retirement befits and get a buy out. These benefits you wouldn’t be eligible unless you were 55-57 YS old and having 30 yrs of service.
my dad was a city teacher ( state of ny employee) what had similar retirement of around 55-57 and 30+ yrs of teaching. He stayed to the latter end of the window was to increase his high 3 yr pension formula.
Djp
Registered User
my dad was in teaching. Then around 1980 or so the retirement system changed.
with many companies with pension systems the retirement age is 55-60 with 25+ yrs of service.
more physically demanding and fitness level jobs like fire, police, construction might have younger age of retirement unless you are in senior management( office only job)
Useless. I stopped subscribing. Harrington makes US$68 K minimum, according to the published union contract. He mostly files stale commentary and complains about Sabres fans being idiots. Never breaks a story. The final straw for me was him bossing that child reporter around. Buffalo News sports brings no value -- but they can't understand why the thing keeps losing readers and just blame the owners of the paper. Get the Athletic. Or throw some money at bloggers. They try.
brian_griffin
"Eric Cartman?"
My opinion, not necessarily grounded in fact, is the internet clicks era has broadened the opportunities for true deep journalism where a story "hidden beneath the surface" of the mainstream media narratives can be brought to the light. The challenge I assume is how to make that economically viable for those who have the skills, patience, and persistence to shed that fresh air / light. In essence, you can't be a click-baiter to do that kind of work. You need to emerge only when your work is done, or "ready for prime time", and so likely need to hand it to the talking heads / narrative pushers to get the air time. I don't know how symbiotic that can be, nor devoid of narrative-pushing.
I work for a generous (relatively speaking in current era) Fortune 500 firm (bigger than Fortune 500, but don't want to reveal more). Federal (military and NGO) and State government retirement and pension rules, early retirement opportunities, and benefits are much more generous than private sector.
NYS teachers (and other NYS employees) system is "tiered". I think current retirees are tier 3 or tier 4. Neighbor across the street is retired corrections officer, some time at Attica, most of it downstate. Don't know what age he retired, but he's 88yo now. He paid into his Tier 1 retirement for 1 month back in the early 1960s before contract negotiation eliminated any percentage of personal contributions from paycheck, instead all of it was fully funded by NYS.
That's the retirement eligibility age. That doesn't mean people retire then. In my company it's less than ~10% eligible employees who do that, primarily because of two reasons:
1) If you're still on a more generous defined benefit pension plan (instead of a less generous defined contribution plan), if you die before full retirement age, your spouse is typically eligible for 50% survivor pension even if you elected the 100% option at retirement. At your age 65, the full actuarial benefit kicks in.
2) Medical insurance coverage costs until you are eligible for Medicare at age 65 can be a deal-breaker, even with a generous defined-benefit pension amount.
AFAIK, State and Federal employees don't have those "limitations" as they have the better medical insurance and survivor pension options, but I could be wrong.
To try to put this back on track, Ryan Johnson ain't gettin no benefits no-how until he signs with somebody.
Edit: sorry - posted this immediately after @Chainshot was working his magic behind the curtains.
joshjull
Registered User
I think thats unfair. Lance, Yerdon, Fairburn and Rachel Hopmayer do a pretty good job. Probably throw Hoppe in there.
Those reporters interact quite a bit on social media with Chad D and other bloggers. Some do it more than others like Lance/Yerdon. But its in a respectful/positive way and usually leads to some pretty good debates/discussions. They don‘t treat the bloggers like the clowns Harrington and Hamilton do.
Put one thing that gets tiresome is the fanboys of those bloggers attacking the members of the press I listed and lumping them in with the idiots. Its usually lazy potshots that take small snippet of something out of context to dump on them.
A prime example is @Ace comments about Lance not wanting to message anyone on Easter in relation to the Johnson signing. Then signing off with - Buffalo press, all days off. Lance submitted two stories (one about the Johnson situation) and answered questions for quite some time on Easter Sunday. Hardly a day off. But of course a bunch of posts follow this one attacking the “local press”.
Lance’s reported that day that scouts and others “who know a lot more than him” (his words) said Johnson as going to the AHL. Not just this season but to start next year. He also said it would like take some time for this situion to resolve itsel. I think he said 10days. Effectively Johnson is a lower tier prospect than Levi and some of his Minny teammates. Who were going right to the NHL. So there wasn’t the urgency to get him signed like they did So it’s not that shocking he didn’t feel the need to bother anyone on Easter over the situation since he knew there would be no urgency to it. But he did call all parties the next day and was hoping to get clarity by the end of the day.
Lance was pretty accurate in his assessment. Johnson may not have like what he heard about going to the AHL and thats why this is dragging out.
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joshjull
Registered User
Having Harrington as a co-worker is about as enjoyable as I expected.
I took a lot of journalism classes at UB and I loved teaching CCD but I'd never be a journalist or a teacher these days.
Ace
Registered User
- Oct 29, 2015
- 24,853
- 31,311
I write for a living. If you’d like I can explain to you the difference between writing a story and researching one. One is something you do when you have time to yourself because you did the work on the other one. You don’t get to choose when the latter needs to be done…doing that is the actual job. The former is the talent and ability you have to disseminate it.
Damn, he unloaded on Harrington, didn't he?
Did you take anything with Galarneau? He taught some journalism classes there, he's the food writer for the News now.
It was the late 90s. The only professor's name I remember was Rick Pfeiffer because he was cool and was the 6 & 11 co-anchor on Channel 4 at the time. He brought us all to the studio to watch the 11 o'clock news and we got to meet Don Paul and even better, Van Miller. Nicest guy ever. Showed us his AFC Championship rings and autographed some scripts for us.
Der Jaeger
Generational EBUG
I'm not in the boat of degrading Buffalo reporters because they don't report on Easter or for social media interactions of any sort. I just don't think most of them do a good job of asking the right questions to lead to actual newsworthy information. I hear, mostly, softball questions or narrative driven questions.
Wawrow's word-salad question about not using cap space to the Sabres advantage, at its core, was a good question. But John couldn't get his own biases out of the way, with the whole missed opportunity part. It's a simple question to ask. "Kevyn, you had around $17M in cap space this season. Why didn't you use it to take on contracts for a year and gain assets?"
There are a lot of simple questions, without narrative, which could be asked. But I mostly read nothing questions which don't get at anything newsworthy, or narrative / bias driven questions. And then this focus on breaking news, "super Sabres" insider BS, and other source related information. For me, that lowers the professional journalist's quality to amateur, which is really what Chad D is.
Sharp, direct questions which directly relate to a newsworthy story or piece of information the fans want to know.
These are some of the writings of my best and favorite college professors. It pretty much captures my thoughts on modern day journalist and why I don't think much of it.
Too few journalists .....
For the want of critical thinking ....
Djp
Registered User
my dad started teaching in the mid 60s. He was on the old system
in fed govt I’m not on the old system. The old system ended in early 80s. Retirement was 2 pct point per year but you didn’t contribute to SS.
in the system im in, they down graded the pension to 1 pt per year but contribute to SS. Thr pct out of paycheck was the same for each system.
in recent years they downgraded it further where new employees need to contribute more to retirement.
Der Jeg is retired military. If he now works the fed govt as a civilian he has to pay more into retirement unless they made a military exception to the change.
Husko
Registered User
Yep, it's really not much different from when I'm teaching my students or young lawyers about examining a witness at trial. You can add whatever kind of bias, jargon, narrative-driven language you want into a question, but all you're doing is getting in the way of the information and giving the person answering something to argue with instead of confronting your actual question. Asking good, succinct, one-fact questions is a skill - and not even necessarily a super advanced one - and many in the Buffalo media seem to lack it.
Jim Bob
RIP RJ
Why Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek listen to listeners of their '32 Thoughts' podcast
As sports talk moves into the digital space, the show features an evolution of an ancient terrestrial radio practice: The listener call-in.
theathletic.com
This is a national hockey media thing, but I felt this was the best thread to throw it in. It is interesting.
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