I am taking my column and going home

Several Don Henley songs come to mind upon reading this, such as "Inside Job," "Dirty Laundry" and "Heart of the Matter."
Good luck in getting a job at FIU.

 

All four lines of agate type, you mean?

 

After reading that column I just picture the guy picking up the paper and bitching about what page his articles were on.

"Another Dwyane Wade story, and of course my FIU feature gets buried."

"Bottom of Page 8 again, those fucking editors don't know how important this story is."

 

Any chance this guy got laid off/fired for other reasons and decided to make it look as though he fell on the sword on behalf of the mighty Golden Panthers of University Park?

 

Pete Pelegrin is obviously leaving the business -- whether he wanted to do so, or not -- after that.

I can understand and even relate to some of his feelings, I think, but this blog went too far. I'm surprised it ever saw the light of day.

Maybe the paper thought it had to allow it, otherwise, it would be all but proving his points. I don't know. But Pelegrin did his former colleagues no favors with this blog (I guess he and Adam Beasley are not friends), and his editors certainly did him no favors by allowing it. While they may not have cared, personally, about that after reading the post, they still should not have allowed it to be published as it was -- for everyone's benefit.

If I'd been Pelegrin's editor, I would have told him so, and edited/balanced it appropriately, and even pulled rank and stopped it from being published, even if I now knew he hated and disrespected me. I wouldn't have given him another reason to do so.

The fact that this blog post got out there at all is a reflection of a systemic procedural shortcoming that sometimes causes problems, and not just in this case.

Editors should have their reporters' backs when it comes to blogs, and they don't, always. The editing of blogs is not given the same care or priority that editing of the print edition gets, and this can, and does, sometimes get people, and papers, into trouble.

Newspapers are putting so much emphasis on the foot-soldier production of social-media versions of their work, and it's terrible that that focus is still lost/not the same farther up the line even though these types of things are being pushed as a major factor in the industry's salvation.

 

I think it's entirely possible that the blog post wasn't edited at all -- either because that standard practice at the Herald and probably many papers -- or because the writer didn't want an editor to look at it.

 

Exactly. Either way, it's a problem.

And the self-editing and self-posting with little oversight or editing that routinely occurs is a common issue.

To me, it's a surprising (and certainly, damaging) one, especially considering how prevalent and demanded blogging has become.

 

Yes, but is it really a blog if everything is run through editors first? And are papers really equipped to have staff on hand to edit blogs 24-7?

 

GASP a one-week furlough? Join the club, pal.

 

Reporters are responsible for writing/updating them 24/7...

Again, it's a system and procedural problem brought on, and exacerbated, by what newspapers are trying, or pretending they're trying, to do: too much, with too little.

But that doesn't mean editing shouldn't be done, or that reporters should be allowed to hang themselves, or others, intentionally or potentially irreparably, because of the excuse that "it's a blog."

If the blog or person is connected to the paper at all, there are certain journalistic standards, protections and procedures that should apply.

 

Yes, they should apply. But I bet that there is nothing to stop a reporter from posting something on a blog without clearing it through an editor at 99.9 percent of papers in this country.

 

He was dedicated to his beat. Yeah, it's Florida "freaking" International. He had two good stories and his editor ditched them to the back pages for a Miami U secretary and everything Hurricanes.

I can see his point when the paper doesn't say what they tell the readers they were going to do: cover all of the teams fairly. That's the part that pissed him off. Had his editor said "look, this is a great piece, but 'The U' is the biggest game in town. I'm putting this on page 3" he would have accepted it, other than the "not enough space" bullshit excuse.