VectorPrime
Pro Bowl Player
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2010
- Messages
- 15,034
- Reaction score
- 19,873
I like Mike Reiss. I have for years. I've always regarded him as a very balanced reporter for the Patriots and I have not changed my opinion on him. I feel that he has been very professional in his handling of deflategate, being generally supportive of Brady and the Patriots but being careful to toe the ESPN party line. But if he wants to maintain his journalistic integrity and self respect he needs to bail from ESPN.
It's no secret that a couple months ago ESPN had a massive website overhaul. From what I can gather, one of the many changes, along with the visually unappealing layout redesign, was that the local ESPN affiliate reporters lost control over a large amount of the content on their teams page. Mike Reiss and his Patriots page was no exception. Mike Reiss' blog was turned from a quality source of relevant Patriots news to some random aggregate of semi-relevant sports stories. Basically in between actual Patriots news the main ESPN website interjects national news stories that may or may not have to do with the actual subject of the page. This has led to weird stories about the Major League All Star Game, playoff Basketball, and other irrelevant stuff to be showcased on the Patriots page on ESPN Boston. Sometimes the news will be older articles brought up due to some algorithmic decision, putting old news in front.
So Mike Reiss has found himself in a position where his ability to produce and publish content has been seriously impaired due to the new layout and ways that ESPN categorizes things. Normally that would just be an annoyance rather than an outright deal breaker but what it means is that it allows ESPN to do a thing like this. Tonight I was on the main page of ESPN, and since the website can ascertain your region through your IP address it automatically puts up your local teams to the side on the main page. I looked at the main headline they had on for their Patriots news. It was this video. A video 10 days old that due to the new ESPN redesign, is allowed, or perhaps forced, to remain the main story for Patriots fans.
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=12850714
Can't you just feel the smugness ooze off the computer screen?
Along with that video is another days old video from the not so long ago fired Keith Olberman that can be seen at the very top of the New England Patriot page.
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:13270464
And this is what people going to the Patriots section of ESPN are greeted with when trying to just keep up with relevant team news. Days old videos, not about any actual news but about the opinions of the national ESPN pundits. They remain the headline stories. And I think we all know why.
I cannot express in words how angry those videos make me feel. I know most of you feel exactly the same way so there is no need to try. We know why they're wrong, biased, etc. That's not the point. (not exactly anyway) The point I'm trying to make is that Mike Reiss, as good a journalist as he is, is frankly being made a fool of by his bosses. His blog is an unreadable joke compounded by the ability of ESPN to sneakily rearrange news articles and give other things prominence on the page.
Look, I don't know what his career situation is. Part of my thinks I'm being selfish for demanding that this man step away from a, very likely, well paying job in an industry that is dying. But damn Mr. Reiss, as a professional how can you put up with ESPN doing this to your newsfeed? Personally I can't stand to deal with the struggle of ESPN Boston anymore and will not read anything he continues to publish while he is on that website.
I just felt like ranting a bit after that video began to autoplay when I went into ESPN. My brain couldn't take it.
It's no secret that a couple months ago ESPN had a massive website overhaul. From what I can gather, one of the many changes, along with the visually unappealing layout redesign, was that the local ESPN affiliate reporters lost control over a large amount of the content on their teams page. Mike Reiss and his Patriots page was no exception. Mike Reiss' blog was turned from a quality source of relevant Patriots news to some random aggregate of semi-relevant sports stories. Basically in between actual Patriots news the main ESPN website interjects national news stories that may or may not have to do with the actual subject of the page. This has led to weird stories about the Major League All Star Game, playoff Basketball, and other irrelevant stuff to be showcased on the Patriots page on ESPN Boston. Sometimes the news will be older articles brought up due to some algorithmic decision, putting old news in front.
So Mike Reiss has found himself in a position where his ability to produce and publish content has been seriously impaired due to the new layout and ways that ESPN categorizes things. Normally that would just be an annoyance rather than an outright deal breaker but what it means is that it allows ESPN to do a thing like this. Tonight I was on the main page of ESPN, and since the website can ascertain your region through your IP address it automatically puts up your local teams to the side on the main page. I looked at the main headline they had on for their Patriots news. It was this video. A video 10 days old that due to the new ESPN redesign, is allowed, or perhaps forced, to remain the main story for Patriots fans.
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=12850714
Can't you just feel the smugness ooze off the computer screen?
Along with that video is another days old video from the not so long ago fired Keith Olberman that can be seen at the very top of the New England Patriot page.
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:13270464
And this is what people going to the Patriots section of ESPN are greeted with when trying to just keep up with relevant team news. Days old videos, not about any actual news but about the opinions of the national ESPN pundits. They remain the headline stories. And I think we all know why.
I cannot express in words how angry those videos make me feel. I know most of you feel exactly the same way so there is no need to try. We know why they're wrong, biased, etc. That's not the point. (not exactly anyway) The point I'm trying to make is that Mike Reiss, as good a journalist as he is, is frankly being made a fool of by his bosses. His blog is an unreadable joke compounded by the ability of ESPN to sneakily rearrange news articles and give other things prominence on the page.
Look, I don't know what his career situation is. Part of my thinks I'm being selfish for demanding that this man step away from a, very likely, well paying job in an industry that is dying. But damn Mr. Reiss, as a professional how can you put up with ESPN doing this to your newsfeed? Personally I can't stand to deal with the struggle of ESPN Boston anymore and will not read anything he continues to publish while he is on that website.
I just felt like ranting a bit after that video began to autoplay when I went into ESPN. My brain couldn't take it.
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