Archive for the 'Tampa Tribune' Category

Jul 30

Postgame Shot Of Joe: Baseball’s Holy Trinity

Albert Pujols, Carlos Pena, Gabe Kapler, Grant Balfour, James Shields, Matt Joyce, MFIKY!, St. Pete Times, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tampa Tribune, Uncategorized, Wade Davis Joe Rays Fan 18 Comments »

Joe is so giddy over the Rays win he doesn’t know where to begin? It was the Holy Trinity of baseball tonight: pitching, defense and a key hit.

* Wade Davis: Was this his best outing? Hard to argue. Once he got past the first, he was simply dominant. Joe has written before Davis could carry the Rays a long way until/unless James “No Game” Shields has proven he has put his awful pitching woes behind him.

Joe cannot write just how great that is to see a No. 4 pitcher come out against a team with the best record in baseball and shut them down for six innings. As strong as the Rays bullpen is, Rays pitchers only need to get through seven innings.

Nice job Wade! Keep it up!

* While Joe has been a bit difficult on Carlos Pena at times for his penchant for imitating Rob Deer with his strikeout-or-homer offense, Joe has never wavered that Pena is one of the best defensive first basemen in baseball and maybe the best.

Pena diving to his right and throwing Read the rest of this entry »

Jun 29

Are The Local Newspapers Influencing The Stadium Debate?

New Stadium, St. Pete Times, Tampa Tribune Cork Gaines 12 Comments »

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.

May 06

[THE HANGOVER] Headline Writers At Times And Tribune Up To Their Old Tricks

Brian Stokes, Evan Longoria, St. Pete Times, Tampa Tribune Cork Gaines 4 Comments »


THE GOOD: Getting a last place team after having been swept by the Sox.

THE BAD: Getting the last place Toronto Blue Jays who are clearly better than their record and have actually won 5 in a row.

THE TELLING: Three games with the Jays, none of which will be started by a pitcher named James Shields or Scott Kazmir.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

  • We use a lot of nicknames here on Rays Index and we receive the occasional email asking what a nickname means or where it came from. In response, we have now added a nickname database in the sidebar under the Cork-Board. Are there any we are missing? [Tampa Bay Rays Nicknames]
  • Marc Lancaster has a big scoop with his latest piece: “For Pitchers, Arm Injuries An Occupational Hazard”…He is already working on his next piece, “The Earth Is Round”. [Tampa Tribune]
  • And not to be outdone, Marc Topkin has the headline “Rays’ best may be yet to come”…Gee. Ya think? We would certainly like to think that a team that has never won more than 70 games or finished higher than 4th, has better days ahead than just a .500 record. If not, We might as well pack up shop and move to Oshkosh and root for the Cheese Herders. [St. Pete Times]
  • Some Jays fans are starting to believe their own hype. Of course, we like the Rays chances with Eric Hinske on our side. Considering the love fest they have for Hinske (they have nicknamed him S#!tske)…we have a feeling the prodigal son is going yard twice in this series. [Drunk Jays Fans]
  • The Rays dropped to 14th in The Sporting News power rankings. [The Sporting News]
  • Were you wondering what Evan Longoria did on his off-day? No? Too bad, we’ll tell you anyway. Dirtbag live-blogged an NBA playoff game that may or may not have featured his brother-in-law. [Bugs & Cranks]
  • Brian Stokes is back in the minors for the Mets as a starter and to say he is struggling is an understatement (Thanks Jordi). [MetsBlog]
Jan 31

[NEWSPAPER BLOGS] Strange Things Are Afoot At The Heater

St. Pete Times, Tampa Tribune Cork Gaines 3 Comments »

The Heater, a Rays blog hosted by the St. Pete Times has a post today referring to an ESPN.com chat hosted by Sean McAdam. The focus of the chat is which team will be better in 2010, The Tampa Bay Rays or the Florida Marlins.

The focus of the chat is not what caught our attention. Rather it was Marc Topkin’s use of an external link directing the reader to ESPN.com. [Ed. note: we feel as though this is not the first time, but we were unable to find other examples. At the very least this is a very rare practice]

Last week we attempted to lay out the differences between our blog, the mainstream media and other more professional blogs such as DRays Bay. Several people took the time to write in and ask why we did not address newspaper blogs.

Newspaper blogs such as The Heater and The Rays Report offer the newspapers a way to report the news in real-time for a society where most news is old news by the time the paper comes out in the morning. However, they are still subjected to many of the same limitations as the journalists that write for the newspaper, such as style and language. In the cases of The Heater and The Rays Report they really are just snippets of what is going on in and around the team as it happens. There is never any analysis of the news item and the commentary is kept to a minimum. Rather it is as they say, “Just the facts”.

Another factor that differentiates traditional blogs (sounds like an oxymoron) from newspaper blogs is the use of external links. Newspapers are a business and like any business they are afraid to send their customers to another location, even if that other location is not a direct competitor. We have long felt that this is the single biggest factor that is holding newspaper blogs back from being something more than just a source of news that comes directly from the team.

Without the freedom to use external links, a journalist is limited in the breadth of news they can report. It appears as though The St. Pete Times may be learning this lesson. It will be interesting to see if this becomes a regular habit for the writers at The Heater and whether or not the Tampa Tribune follows the St. Pete Times’ lead.

Rays or Marlins [TampaBay.com]
Please Do Not Accuse Of Trying To Be Journalists [Rays Index]

Jan 25

[BLOGGING IS NOT JOURNALISM] Please Do Not Accuse Us Of Trying To Be Journalists

DRaysBay, Poop jokes are my woobie, St. Pete Times, Tampa Tribune Cork Gaines 19 Comments »

Yesterday Big Daddy Drew at Deadspin addressed the subject of Blogging as Journalism. It is an excellent read and I highly recommend for anybody that spends time reading blogs, to take five minutes and read it. It is my feeling that this debate is at the core of much of the criticism that has been leveled at this site, both in the comments and in emails.

Some feel that at times I can be overly critical of newspaper columnists and websites that cover the Rays. What people need to realize is that Rays Index is just a chronicle of what is going on in the Raysiverse mixed with my occasional editorialization. Some of those thoughts have been molded by talking with others before I write, but make no mistake, the words on this page are mine and mine alone. One person’s opinion. If you disagree with me, I must ask why you hate freedom. Or maybe I am wrong. That is what the comments section is for, and I promise those comments are never censored.

I am not a journalist, nor am I trying to be a journalist or pretending to be a journalist. It should be obvious that there is a clear distinction between the writings at this site and the work that is done at The Tampa Tribune or The St. Pete Times. And while it may not be as obvious, many of the same distinctions are what separates this site from another Rays “blog”, DRays Bay.

Many of the criticisms directed at this site are for the way I have treated writers at DRays Bay. Sports blogs come in all different shapes, sizes and colors. Unlike most blogs, including this one, Drays Bay is trying to be a journalistic entity and some of the writers at Drays Bay aspire to be professional sports writers. One has even written a book on the Rays. They try to give you breaking news. They do interviews. They present everything to you in real time, whether it be important or not. They have 284 different writers and 10,000 different things you can click on their front page. They are the Yahoo! of Rays websites.

At RI, I don’t often write until I have had a chance to discuss the topic, think the topic through, feel out multiple sides to the topic. It gives me a chance to offer a well-thought out evaluation of what has happened, what has been said, and what has been written…and maybe insert a poop joke or two. And quite frankly a lot of the topics don’t need much discussion, so they go in the “Devil Rays Webtopia” the next morning. But if something is written that is idiotic, silly or just plain wrong, I will voice my opinion and make sure that Rays fans are made aware as to why I feel the other piece is crap. It does not matter whether the original piece was presented by the Tribune, the Times, DRays Bay or Martha’s Beanie Baby Blog.

From Big Daddy Drew’s post on Deadspin…

The problem is that many journalists, and in turn many readers, have a deeply held belief that the printed word (on paper or electronically) holds more weight than the spoken word. That it is somehow sacrosanct. But that’s not true on blogs, or on message boards, or on text messages. In these new forms of media, the written word is just as disposable and frivolous as a conversation between me and you (and talking with me is like taking a dip in an empty kiddie pool). And it’s foolish to assume otherwise. Most sports blogs are run by fans, and serve mainly as an online extension of the friendly banter we all engage in about sports on a daily basis. It’s not journalism. It’s a blog. It’s its own thing, and the two needn’t be confused.

I have no aspirations to be a journalist, so I am not worried about offending anybody. I don’t care if the team gets upset with something I write, because I am not seeking interviews. I don’t care if I insult Marc Lancaster or Marc Topkin, because I am not trying to get a job with the Tribune or the Times. That allows me to truly speak to you as one fan would speak to another. You may not agree with my evaluation, but it is mine…uncensored.

I would like to think that this gives RI a level of objectivity that you will not find elsewhere. Unlike journalists, or those that aspire to be journalists, we are not beholden to the hands that feed us. We feed ourselves.

As for Rays of Light? They are a blog like us…minus the asshole and the 8th grade humor…Wait…Never mind.

The Super Bowl Bye Week Jamboroo, In Which Drew Pauses To Make A Serious Point About Blogging As Journalism, Then Makes Chili [Deadspin]

Feb 26

The St. Pete Times And The Tampa Tribune Would Like Rays Fans To Drink Their Kool-Aid

B. S., Chicago Tribune, ESPN, Kool Aid, NASCAR, New York Times, SportsCenter, St. Pete Times, Tampa Tribune Cork Gaines No Comments »

Late last season the Tampa Bay Devil Rays signed a sponsorship agreement with the St. Pete Times, in which the local newspaper would be designated “The official newspaper of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays”. In addition, the Times became the main sponsor of devilrays.com, the first such agreement between a Major League team and a sponsor .

While this deal is a source of revenue for the team, which ultimately decides the product on the field, in the long run it has direct negative impact on the fans. As a news organization, the St. Pete Times is supposed to be unbiased in their coverage of any news story. But now the success of the St. Pete Times is affected by the success of the Rays. If the Rays do well, more fans go to the games and the team’s website. More fans at the games means more people will be drawn to the St. Pete Times kiosks that will be found throughout the Trop and more fans on the team’s website means more traffic to the St. Pete Times website. In essence, the Times is banking on the hope that associating the newspaper with the Rays will mean more customers and more revenue for the newspaper. The problem is that it is no longer in the Times best interest to be unbiased. In fact, it is more beneficial to their business to only report positively on the Rays. This hurts the average fan that looks to the local newspaper as a source of unbiased information.

This association of the St. Pete Times with the Rays is felt elsewhere also. As a direct competitor, it is no longer in the best interest of the Tampa Tribune to support the Rays. In fact, a look at local coverage of Spring Training and you will see far more coverage of the New York Yankees in the Tribune than you will see in the Times. A rough count shows that the Tribune has run nine stories on the Yankees in the past seven days. This cannot be due solely to the Yankees having their spring training home in Tampa, as the area is considered part of the St. Pete Times market. Of course it may also be due to the sponsorship deal between the New York Yankees and The Tampa Tribune (as seen in this list of Yankees spring training promotions).

In addition to the bias in coverage and writing, there is now likely to be unbalanced access for the local papers. Is it too much to assume that the team will grant more access to the St. Pete Times from whom they have received millions of dollars? It is not unthinkable that the team would also grant special privileges to the Times such as first access to breaking news by leaking stories to the Times prior to other news sources, especially the Tribune. So while other sources may not have biased coverage, they may in fact have no coverage at all.

This is not an issue that is restricted to the Tampa Bay Rays. This has been a long-standing and more serious problem with many other professional sports clubs . Ask any White Sox fan about the Chicago Tribune’s coverage of the local baseball teams. The Tribune owns the Cubs and has a direct interest in the promotion of the team. There is even a website dedicated to this bias, The Chicago Cubune. In New York, there is considerable contention from Yankees fans concerning the lack of coverage of their beloved Bombers in the New York Times especially as compared to the Boston Red Sox. The Times would probably tell you it is because a lot of Bostonians have relocated to the Big Apple and that Yankees fans are always interested in what is happening with their arch rival. Still, many fans complain that there is actually more coverage of the Sox than the Yankees. Silly? Not when you realize that the New York Times is a minority owner of the Boston Red Sox.

This is not an issue restricted to newsprint either. Tune into Sportscenter on ESPN since they acquired the broadcast rights to NASCAR and you would suddenly think you were watching NASCARCenter. In addition, it was four days before ESPN.com ran a story on the PacMan Jones shooting in Las V
egas during the recent NBA All-Star game weekend. An oversight from the “Worldwide Leader”? Or was ESPN hesitant to report on a what would be perceived as a black eye for two leagues that they have a lot of money invested in through broadcast rights?

Is this bias real or just perceived by the fans? Does it matter? From Chicago Cubune website we would like to direct the management of the St. Pete Times and the Tampa Tribune to two quotes:

Journalists must avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety as well as any conflict of interest or the appearance of conflict. — from the American Society of Newspaper Editors Code of Ethics

Journalists should avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived, remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility, disclose unavoidable conflicts… deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage. — from the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics

Is the St. Pete Times ordering its writers to only publish positive articles about the Rays or to minimize the negative articles? Is the Tampa Tribune purposefully avoiding coverage of the Rays and directing it towards the Yankees? Is there bias in their writing and their publishing? There is no way to be certain and they would never admit it, but there is a perceived bias at this point. We understand the nature of the beast. It is the natural flow of an economy. As fans we want revenue streams for the team. Ultimately it will mean a better product on the field, but can we ever trust what we read again? Now that the St. Petersburg Times is in bed with the Rays, we will still read the articles and columns, but we will now be forced to seek a balanced opinion elsewhere. This bias will likely push more fans to sites like this one or DRays Bay or Rays of Light, where we attempt to read through the B. S. and present to you a (somewhat) unbiased dissection of the news that is presented in other forums. OK, we are biased, but at least the Rays aren’t controlling our content.

St. Pete Times and Tampa Tribune, this Kool-Aid smells funny. Thanks, but no thanks.