The Anti-Media Media

[MTK]

A newly acquired Internet board is the Skins’ latest party organ.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/c...cheap1021.html


Dan Snyder’s free-agent acquisitions in his early years seemed to show a fondness for an “If you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em” strategy with regard to personnel. That tack didn’t work out real well: Deion, Jeff George, the Jets’ offense, etc. Snyder hasn’t abandoned the concept, however. He’s just taken it off the field. He’s becoming the king of all media.

One of the most novel steps came in August, when the Redskins announced they had acquired ExtremeSkins.com. That was sort of the Neon Deion of fan Web sites, the most popular and brashest such outlet in the burgundy-and-gold universe. ExtremeSkins.com is the first existing fan site ever acquired by an NFL team.

Unique or not, the move was absolutely consistent with Snyder’s behavior since acquiring the Skins. The team’s media manipulation started shortly after Snyder bought the team. He acquired established publications, including the Redskins Journal, a Manassas-based independent fanzine that predated the Internet.

He began producing a series of television shows, most of which involved putting area TV and radio sportscasters, folks who are part of station’s news departments and considered journalists, on the payroll of the team they cover most. (Last month, the team debuted the Snyder-produced Redskins Late Night on WUSA-TV, leaving WJLA-TV as the only major-network-affiliated station in this market not broadcasting the team’s infomercials.)

But whereas most of Snyder’s encroachments into traditional media have been effected with next to no fanfare, some folks are taking notice of the ExtremeSkins.com takeover. Journalists not on the payroll, mainly. The Skins site has become another weapon the team can use against anybody who publicly questions management’s moves and is seen as much as an anti-media forum as a pro-Skins destination.

In an ExtremeSkins.com chat shortly after his acquisition, Snyder slammed the media for, among other things, questioning the big-screen TV at FedEx Field and for using anonymous sources in newspaper stories about his squad. (“I would encourage the local media to follow the example of the national outlets like USA Today which refuses to use unidentified sources,” Snyder posted. “Most obviously have personal agendas.”) When asked what his biggest challenge has been since taking over the team, Snyder answered, “The inaccuracies in the media. The portrayal of people and the use of the coaches, the players and the owners to sell their newspapers.”

During his own chat on ExtremeSkins.com, Karl Swanson, the team’s senior vice president and top Snyder spokesperson, directed all visitors to the “Nunyo Files,” which was a running compendium on the site of alleged reporting mistakes by Nunyo Demasio, the Washington Post reporter who recently left the Skins beat for Sports Illustrated.

A bizarre but widely believed legend among media types at Redskins Park holds that Swanson, for some time, has been railing about the coverage of the team in various postings to ExtremeSkins.com and other Web sites under the handle “andyman.” This character has attained hero status among surfers of ExtremeSkins.com for providing dead-on information about impending transactions, trashing the media all the while. When somebody on the ExtremeSkins.com praised the work of Bram Weinstein, the Redskins beat reporter for sports station WTEM-AM, for example, andyman came through with “He has no idea what’s going on at Redskins Park and neither do the other reporters.”

A recent posting on a sports-media Web site, SportsJournalists.com, seemed to out Swanson as a chat-room lurker; it claimed that the Redskins official had screwed up by registering at that site while the board was hot from a flame-filled thread about Demasio’s move to Sports Illustrated. If such a high-ranking team official, let alone one in charge of dealing with the media, were discovered to be a pseudonymous basher, that could stain the entire organization. Swanson admits that he indeed registered at SportsJournalists.com, but he says he only was trying to reach the moderator and denied having ever posted there or anywhere else as andyman.

“I know of andyman, but I do not know who that is. I am not andyman,” says Swanson.

Swanson says he thinks the real andyman is “somebody who works at a copy desk” of a newspaper (which wouldn’t really explain the character’s apparent anti-media bias).

Some media-bashers aren’t so loath to be outed. The poster who goes by Art is the Wilt Chamberlain of ExtremeSkins.com—he now claims more than 21,000 posts to the Skins site alone. Art has positioned himself as more of a media attack dog than a watchdog; he goes after any journo who utters a negative word about Snyder’s operation with the fervor of a scorned Scientologist. Art is the guy responsible for the Nunyo Files, and he says he’d be doing it even if the Redskins hadn’t acquired the site.

“My name is Art Mills, and everybody there knows that ‘Art’ is Art Mills,” he says. “I’ve been attacking bad journalism for years, before the Redskins ever knew my name, and I’ll be attacking bad journalism for years to come.”

Demasio says he gave his enemies fuel by erroneously reporting that the Redskins were going to cut Ryan Clark before the 2004 season, but he finds the continued attacks against him on ExtremeSkins.com rather amusing.

“As a journalist, every mistake hits like a dagger,” Demasio says. “So I wish I never gave one bit of ammunition. But I still can’t figure out how [the Nunyo Files were] supposed to smear me, especially after the team bought the site. If anything, it made me realize that the Washington Post got under their skins, no pun intended.”

Eric Leichter, a North Dakota urologist and one of the board’s previous owners, declines to discuss the financial terms of the Redskins’ takeover of his board. But Leichter says he supports the site’s tone just as much now as he did before it fell under Snyder’s management umbrella. In fact, he joined Mills and andyman in crashing Demasio’s going-away party at SportsJournalists.com. Posting on the site as “SkinBlade”—he uses “Blade” while bashing at ExtremeSkins.com—Leichter prodded anybody saying nice things about Demasio to “stop swinging from Nunyo’s sack.”

The Skins have rewarded Mills, who lives in Minnesota, for his anti-media venom in a very weird way. Along with getting paid for his contributions to the Redskins Web site, since Snyder’s takeover of the site, Mills now gets to watch the team’s games from—you guessed it—the press box, and all on the team’s dime. He recounts his experiences on the site, which leads to such journalism as the following, from the press box of Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas, posted just after the Skins completed their Monday Night Miracle: “Monday, Sept. 19, Brunell to MOSS TD—Now we’re obnoxious. Mediamembers looking at us. Screw them. YES BABY!!!!!!!! We sprint down to sidelines now.”

Allowing representatives from the fan site, let alone brash media-bashers, to sit alongside working media in the press box troubles Dave Elfin, the longtime Washington Times reporter who now serves as president of the Pro Football Writers Association.

“I wish they were not there,” says Elfin. “They have cheered in the press box, which is against every tenet of the press box. There are already disputes over fan Web sites [being given press credentials] in other markets. But in those other cases, the sites aren’t owned by the team. Here, the site is owned by the team, so we really have no say who gets in the press box. It’s up to the team, and they choose to let in fans disguised as journalists. It’s a distressing trend.”

Mills, who says he used to be a working newspaperman before going into medical-equipment sales, is the opposite of apologetic when he hears that some journalists question the validity of a paid fan reporting on games.

“We give fans an eyes-wide-open, aw-shucks view that they can’t get anywhere else,” he says. “Our presence is every bit as appropriate as the traditional media.” CP

[VTSkins897]

professional poster

seems like someone's takin it a little far

[FRPLG]

So apparently "journalists" are too good to sit in a press box with us regular folk! This just shows the smugness and superiority complex of today's so called "journalists". This is not just an issue with sports writers but with "jorunalists" in general. Seems they in general think they know better, do better and are better than the rest of us regular people.

[mooby]

wow. good article though.

[Gmanc711]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

So apparently "journalists" are too good to sit in a press box with us regular folk! This just shows the smugness and superiority complex of today's so called "journalists". This is not just an issue with sports writers but with "jorunalists" in general. Seems they in general think they know better, do better and are better than the rest of us regular people.

I understand where they are coming from with the cheering in the pressbox. I've had the chance to cover a couple (minor league) games and the number one rule told to me by everyone was that you dont cheer in the pressbox. Thats why I dont know if I could achive a dream of covering the Redskins. I honestly dont think I could sit in there and be professional.

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by Gmanc711

I understand where they are coming from with the cheering in the pressbox. I've had the chance to cover a couple (minor league) games and the number one rule told to me by everyone was that you dont cheer in the pressbox. Thats why I dont know if I could achive a dream of covering the Redskins. I honestly dont think I could sit in there and be professional.

My father had the chance to go to a Skins game and was a guess of a friend who was a guess of Jerry Jones. He sat in the owners box and watch the most exciting game he had ever seen as the Skins hit Aikmen in the end zone he fumbled and we recovered for a TD in the last minutes of the game (I think the game was in the mid 80's). My father could only sit there and watch as RFK was shaking from all the cheering fans. It was pretty cool because he sat beside Clarence Thomas and he has a pix with him and you can see the band playing on the field durn half time.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by Gmanc711

I understand where they are coming from with the cheering in the pressbox. I've had the chance to cover a couple (minor league) games and the number one rule told to me by everyone was that you dont cheer in the pressbox. Thats why I dont know if I could achive a dream of covering the Redskins. I honestly dont think I could sit in there and be professional.

They're fans. It is not their job to be unbiased. They are reporting for a fan site for fans. Just because the other journalists have to appear unbiased doesn't mean they should have to also. I think they're taking themselves too seriously if they honestly think the press box must be this bastion of anti-bias and "honesty". If they can't deal with a little competiton then their insecurities show right through. It's not like the fan sit reporters are pawning themselves off as unbiased. That would be a problem.

[MTK]

Cheering in the press box, regardless of your affiliation, is a little tacky and doesn't seem very professional in my book.

But that's just my opinion.

[saskin]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

So apparently "journalists" are too good to sit in a press box with us regular folk! This just shows the smugness and superiority complex of today's so called "journalists". This is not just an issue with sports writers but with "jorunalists" in general. Seems they in general think they know better, do better and are better than the rest of us regular people.

I agree, journalists (and not just sports jounralists) are putting themselves higher than anything....

[56FAN]

the media can suck eggs for all i care. their opinions are no better than ours. and journalism has gotten to the point where it's less about fact and more about their opinion. that also is not just sports. this whole thing is pretty silly.The media has by and large forgotten it's place and is full of itself. that's why alot of other avenues for info are popping up. I'm mostly sick of this arrogant attitude they have that they are standard barrer's of what ever it is they are talking about. and most of the time they have never done what ever it is that they are talking about and yet they feel right to judge , condemn and chastise anyone they feel like. but woe to you if think you can chastise them for any reason.alot of hot air i would say. as far as this thing between snyder and the post ie media. i don't care, not my problem. but i have to say the media was in my doghouse long before snyder got here.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

Cheering in the press box, regardless of your affiliation, is a little tacky and doesn't seem very professional in my book.

But that's just my opinion.

You're right, it's not a professional thing for a sportswriter to do. But they're not sportswriters. Dan Snyder gets to decide who he puts in the pressbox, and if he wants to put biased fans in there, then that's his prerogative.

Those guys are in the pressbox because there is a big demand for their product. They put out biased opinions on the Redskins through their site and the column published weekly on Redskins.com.

If Lenny P and Peter King can spew their biased anti-Skins venom all over ESPN and SI, why can't Dan Snyder counter by providing biased pro-Skins material?

I'm all for it, give the fans what they want. Ideally we'd like objective reporting. But if our choices are material biased against the Redskins, or material biased for the Redskins, you know what I'd like to be reading.

[MTK]

My only concern is how this reflects on Snyder's already shaky reputation with the media.

Now there's fans cheering on the team in the press box and this is obviously not sitting well with the media who already has it out for the Skins & Snyder, plus it's not going to do much for the image of fan sites in general.

It's certainly Snyder's prerogative who he wants to put in the press box, but they shouldn't be surprised when there is some backlash.

[djnemo65]

I'm not real familiar with Extremeskins (always prefererred this site's more subdued discussions to Extreme's shouting matches) but it would definately bother me if Redskins Adminsistrators are posting there psuedonymously so as to attack and discredit reporters, and I think this article alleges this pretty credibly. Moreoever, this would make the team's purchase of the board particularly insidious.

As for the rants against the media in this thread, I've always been impressed with the Post and Times' coverage. Although not always pro-Skin biased or whatever, I've found it in the past to be generally reliable, well-written, and full of useful information. Although they've often been critical over the years, let's not forget that the Skins have been a losing team for over a decade.

Finally, I'm glad to like a team with the history and local devotion that warrants the amount of coverage the Redskins receive - I mean, there could be no stories at all for us to compalin about

Oh yeah, one last thing. There is something very creepy about rewarding posters who go after reporters with pressbox tickets. Like the sports version of the Gestapo or something. Ick.

[BrudLee]

I'm wouldn't be surprised if Redskins' brass are posting anonymously on extreme - or here for that matter. It's a time tested practice. For example, I'm actually the ghost of Jack Kent Cooke.

If the Redskins muckety-mucks have decided that their time is best spent on chat boards writing far-fetched conspiracy theories about the way their team is viewed, then bully for them. In fact, I'd like an application, and I'll need to put in for back pay.

[joecrisp]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

You're right, it's not a professional thing for a sportswriter to do. But they're not sportswriters. Dan Snyder gets to decide who he puts in the pressbox, and if he wants to put biased fans in there, then that's his prerogative..

If they're not sportswriters, they don't belong in the pressbox. That's why it's called the "PRESS" box.

This is particularly irking to me, as I worked my butt off for three years trying to establish myself as a "fan reporter"-- spending my own hard-earned cash and that of TheWarpath faithful, using vacation time away from my wife that could certainly have been spent on more relaxing endeavors, pulling all-nighters trying to get my camp reports published in a timely manner, not to mention the inordinate amount of butt-kissing required to get any assistance from the Redskins media relations staff, and the tremendous amount of composure and self-control required to avoid ruffling the feathers of the folks who make their living as reporters.

How was I rewarded? I was told I was no longer welcome as a fan reporter-- by none other than the very same folks who are now foisting these obnoxious, anti-media, pseudo-reporter fans upon the professional media members.

I was lucky enough to get to spend a day in the pressbox for the Redskins-Ravens scrimmage back in August-- only because I was a reporter for The Daily Progress-- but I conducted myself as professionally as I could, and tried to be as unobtrusive as possible to those who were there trying to earn a living. That's how I always behaved around Redskins Park, because that's how I would want a visitor to behave in my workplace.

How would you like it if you had people running around in your office, jumping up and down, yelling and shouting-- when you're trying to focus and get work done on deadline? Most of us would probably at some point want to grab them and toss them headlong out the nearest window. I'd imagine that's how the professional media members in that pressbox felt when they were confronted with such unwelcome behavior.

I imagine if I had known that all the Redskins wanted out of a "fan reporter" was someone who could be as obnoxious and inconsiderate as possible around the professional reporters, I could have played that role quite naturally, and TheWarpath.net would've become the Redskins' official message board long ago.

Shame on me for trying to do the right thing.