Are The Local Newspapers Influencing The Stadium Debate?
New Stadium, St. Pete Times, Tampa Tribune June 29th. 2010, 9:00am
That’s what 10Connects.com asks in a recent piece.
“I’ve looked at both papers’ coverage,” said Dr. Randy Miller, a journalism professor at USF. “Both sides have had coverage that clearly points out it either is – or isn’t – a good idea to move the stadium across the bay.”
It is an interesting question on several levels…
Do the St. Pete Times and the Tampa Tribune even recognize municipal boundaries anymore? When we were growing up, if you lived in Tampa, you read the Tribune. If you lived in St. Pete, you read the Times. But those boundaries are much greyer nowadays.
And where would the Times’ loyalties lie if it were going to be biased in its coverage? On the one hand, most of their constituents are in Pinellas County. But they are also business partners with the Rays. Is it better for the Times if the Rays stay in St. Pete where they are based? Or is it better for the Times if the Rays are in Tampa where they can maximize revenues and increase the Times’ influence on the east side of the Bay?
And what move would benefit the Tribune? Certainly having the Rays in Tampa would be ideal for the Tribune. But it also risks increasing the Times’ footprint in Tampa.
We don’t know the answers to these questions, but it does raise questions about whether the local newspapers are presenting unbiased coverage of the Rays stadium situation.
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Does anyone actually read the paper anymore? I could just as easily get my news online from the Seattle Gazette. Having only lived in the area since 2006, I can’t tell one paper from the other. And doesn’t TBT fall in there somewhere? I don’t see why they just don’t merge.
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Woo-hoo! Dr. Miller was my favorite professor at USF.
That said, there’s a reason I’m out of the journalism game. OF COURSE both sides aren’t showing an unbiased view of the stadium coverage. Go back to when the Times pulled their papers out of the Trop when Dukes was making bad headlines on the front page. Yeah, reeeeeally ethical there, Times … o ye of the Poynter Institute. (Insert snarky laugh here.) And The Mothership (read: The Trib) is just as bad. I can give you a laundry list of bad decisions the Trib/Media General has made over the past five years alone (ooh, yeah, let’s only give one read to all of our stories to put a priority on speed over quality, and have typos in the story announcing that. HA).
Today’s journalism is craptastic. Writers and editors with agendas, owenrships more interested in shmoozing and glad-handing than seeking out the truth, and a readership who is willing to believe everything that is written.
Ah the Tampa Tribune.. the home of reporters and editors who they rig high school award voting and manipulate stories and words from the people they interview… What a great paper.. hahahaha
I love the fact that the St Pete Times is starting to eat into the Trib’s market share here in Tampa. I live downtown, 2 minutes from the Trib and the only paper I get is the SPT.
John, I worked along side both the Trib and the Times high school beat reporters for a good eight years, and never once was there any collusion about rigging high school awards or who they were going to interview to make someone looked better. Just because you or your child wasn’t good enough to win doesn’t mean it’s a reporter’s fault.
Hahaha ahhh Amanda my little girl…
Google the name: Rozel Lee
And educate yourself little one and then come back with an apology.
And if people just want the meat and bones of who this miserable fatty was:
Here is the Jackass of the Week from February 2006:
http://www.sportsrant.com/forums/t23673-rozel-lee-jackass-week-february-7th-2006-february-15th-2006-a.html
No. 1, if I may use a Jim Rome saying, someone’s personal appearance is not a take.
No. 2, this happened after I left Tampa, and I’m just finding out about this. I’m kind of shocked because I know Rozel, but this is just one instance from one person. So you seem to think this happens all the time because of one instance?
No. 3, don’t you DARE call me little girl. I’m a 36-year-old college graduate and a business professional. If you can’t build a reasoned arguement other than calling people names and belittling others, maybe you shouldn’t comment at all.
Both papers have an agenda, bottom line to push for a new Rays stadium for distrubution and marketing purposes. It will be a windfall for them. Having said that, we have already seen shoddy pieces like the Aaron Sharockman Politifact piece that is more opinion than fact and Gary Shelton obscuring/missing out on asking important questions of the owner that should have been asked.
Stuart Sternberg, Matt Silverman and Michael Kalt are EATING the papers and television’s palms for dinner and getting seconds. Is it worth mortgaging the whole area over?!
Yes, people still read the paper.
Amanda,
If you wanna take stern tone at me in the first place, expect it back, don’t bitch and complain because you were so grossly WRONG and embarrassed by the fact now that you have no credibility.
If you wanna act like you know it all (“I work at the Trib, the Times”) posing yourself as a expert, then you should know your facts.
Remember YOUR immature, KID-LIKE FIRST response:
“John, I worked along side both the Trib and the Times high school beat reporters for a good eight years, and never once was there any collusion about rigging high school awards or who they were going to interview to make someone looked better. Just because you or your child wasn’t good enough to win doesn’t mean it’s a reporter’s fault.”
But YOU DON’T HAVE A CLUE… And admitted to it..
Game Over
I’m sorry, but there’s nothing child-like in my answer, and it sounds like I have touched a nerve. As I said, this all happened after I left, so I had no knowledge of it. I do have, however, first-hand knowledge of annoying parents who thought that the sun rose and set out of their children’s asses, like ones whose Class-A prep school son’s career would be wrecked if their stats weren’t fudged to make them look better.
Don’t have a clue, eh? My name is Amanda Tomaini, and I won the first-ever Bill McGrotha Scholarship for Sportswriting. (McGrotha was the long-time sports editor for the Tallahassee Democrat, and the columnist who interviewed me after I won said that McGrotha would be turning over in his grave to know a woman won the first scholarship named after him.) I won the scholarship based off the feature article I wrote in 1995 when Bruce Bochy was named the manager of the Pardres during the lockout. I was the Sports Editor of the Brevard Community College Capsule, and Bochy had also attended that school. I also won first place in the Community College Press Association awards for that same article. I was top in my journalism class in 1997 at USF and was the Assistant Sports Editor, and I continued to cover high school sports for several of the Sunbelt Newspapers (mainly the Carrollwood News), which were owned by Media General, the same company that owns the Tribune, until about 2002, when I started doing more general assignment stories and switched my focus to design work.
I’ll be more than happy to e-mail you a copy of the article from BCC as proof.
Now then …. you may completely disagree with my opinion. That’s fine. These comments are here to discuss, and it would be pretty boring if we all had the same opinion. However, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say I don’t have a clue. I have more clues in my right pinky than you’d ever hope to have.