Fritz Neighbor leaving the Missoulian

[UMGriz75]

Well,you are right, people want local news, however the Missoulian is not reporting the news it's more like indoctrination of their agenda.

The Missoulian has a long and distinguished history, and has generally always been a very good newspaper. In sports, Ray Rocene ("Sports Jabs") was right up there with Royal Brougham ("The Morning After") in Seattle as a "must read" sports writer. That tradition has continued, Jeff Herman, John Blanchett, down to the current "crop."

Where the Missoulian really damaged its "brand" was the bizarre, and thoroughly politicized, approach to the non-existent "rape" scandals and the JJ trial. It wasn't just "bad." It was so bad that "bad" doesn't even begin to describe it. It wasn't journalism at all. It had nothing to do with "reporting."

Sherry Devlin is no Ed Coyle or Martin Hutchens, and became so invested in the perceived skills of her ace feminist reporter that she allowed the newspaper to throw all honesty to the wind. I've always wondered about the interactions between the hapless sports writing staff and the resolutely dishonest coverage being given to the sport community during that time in the newsroom.

All too many people became disgusted with the paper, and I know several of my friends, who used to be faithful subscribers, quit and never went back, just over that. The real "scandal" of that time period is how a formerly trusted newspaper destroyed its own credibility by promoting an injustice that was transparent in every article on the subject, including the one where the reporter got to report on her own critics, as a news item, describing her critics on egriz as members of a "testosterone soaked universe."

It was a spiteful and dishonest hack-job, an overt conflict of interest for the reporter, but Devlin ran it anyway. Byline and all. There was no journalistic integrity left.

 

[horribilisfan8184]

Well,you are right, people want local news, however the Missoulian is not reporting the news it's more like indoctrination of their agenda.

The Missoulian has a long and distinguished history, and has generally always been a very good newspaper. In sports, Ray Rocene was right up there with Royal Brougham in Seattle as a "must read" sports writer. That tradition has continued, Jeff Herman, John Blanchett, down to the current "crop."

Where the Missoulian really damaged its "brand" was the bizarre, and thoroughly politicized, approach to the non-existent "rape" scandals and the JJ trial. It wasn't just "bad." It was so bad that "bad" doesn't even begin to describe it. It wasn't journalism at all. It had nothing to do with "reporting."

Sherry Devlin is no Ed Coyle or Martin Hutchens, and became so invested in the perceived skills of her ace feminist reporter that she allowed the newspaper to throw all honesty to the wind. I've always wondered about the interactions between the hapless sports writing staff and the resolutely dishonest coverage being given to the sport community during that time in the newsroom.

All too many people became disgusted with the paper, and I know several of my friends, who used to be faithful subscribers, quit and never went back, just over that. The real "scandal" of that time period is how a formerly trusted newspaper destroyed its own credibility by promoting an injustice that was transparent in every article on the subject, including the one where the reporter got to report on her own critics, as a news item, describing her critics on egriz as members of a "testosterone soaked universe."

It was a spiteful and dishonest hack-job, an overt conflict of interest for the reporter, but Devlin ran it anyway. Byline and all. There was no journalistic integrity left.

Now that is putting one in the bleachers. :thumb:

 

[MrTitleist]

To follow up on that, I believe there were a couple of eGrizzers who own businesses who pulled their advertising from the paper after all of this as well.

 

[PlayerRep]

Devlin was part of the problem along with Florio, I was told. Delvin participated actively, is my understanding. Eventually, I think UM pulled back some of its advertising revenues. There were one or more times when Florio/Devlin put some of their paragraphs into Neighbor articles. In one of those instances, some of the information was incorrect, and the Missoulian had to retract, or sorta retract, it.

 

[MrTitleist]

Gary Marbut recently went after the Missoulian in his blog because Devlin is allowing letters to the editor to be published about him saying, "You know what would make Montana better? Gary Marbut being gone." And that's it.. maybe if it only fits their agenda, I suppose.

 

[UMGriz75]

Devlin thought the Missoulian could exploit the situation and make a "name" for itself. Even after the jury trial and the utter disaster of a case that the County tried to present, and the mendacious and duplicitous behavior of nearly everyone on the prosecution's witness list was made public, it had become clear that Florio had significantly altered and distorted her reporting running up to the trial, and did no better job during the trial. Her reporting was clearly biased in favor of supporting her political agenda, of which this case was "supposed" to be a vindication of her viewpoints on sports and athletes, a'la Rolling Stone. It not only backfired spectacularly, the testimony under sworn oaths demolished the case that she, as an advocate, was attempting to make in the guise of "reporting." Devlin supported and encouraged that perversion of journalistic ethics.

"Ordinarily," a reporter engaging in that level of intentional, systematic distortion and misrepresentation -- she wasn't hired to write opinion pieces -- would have been fired.

Instead, Devlin nominated Florio for a Pulitzer Prize.

 

[grizpack]

I know that the Missoulian was cutting back hours of the sports staff a little while back, or not giving them the promised hours. If you look over the past few years, 75% or more of the sports pages were just AP stories copied and pasted. It is too bad, as they have lost some really talented writers.