I am taking my column and going home

"Evangelist" = "shill."

 

I used to work in Jacksonville, and Gator fans thought we were biased toward FSU, FSU fans thought we were biased toward the Gators,
Georgia fans thought we were biased to the Florida schools, FAMU fans thought we were biased against the historically black colleges, and so it goes.

 

Subtle, quality work.

 

If you are not pissing someone off, you are probably not doing your job. If you are pissing everyone off, you are probably doing your job well.

 

I remember one writer the coaches, SIDs and fans would complain about because -- in their opinion -- in game stories he would rip the team if they lost, would rip the team if they blew out an overmatched opponent and would rip the team if they didn't win by more in a close game.

 

I just can't believe he didn't understand where FIU fit in the Herald's universe. 10,000 per home game? There's high schools in Georgia and Texas that have that many fans attend football games. Of course the U, the Dolphins, the Heat, etc. are more important that FIU. That's a no-brainer. Fan interest drives our interest. Miami has 47,000 fans per game. FIU has 10,000. Enough said. We're not in the business of building up start-up athletic programs.

 

In his defense, if that is your beat, then you SHOULD be pushing to get stories on the front page and should feel that it is important.

However, you need to realize where the beat stands in the pecking order and not feel stories should get certain play just because another school gets it.

 

Did Herald staff FIU road football games? Not sure of the value in doing so.

 

I believe that was one of the writer's complaints.

 

Pete Pelegrin would not like working in Boston.

 

You should be pushing to write stories and break news worthy of the front. Not pushing to "get" better play.

That is what drives me nuts sometimes about ASEs in our biz. One day, they will complain about "why are we wasting space on XXXXX"

Two weeks later, they are made ASE in chage of XXXXXXX, and in the budget meeting it's "We need to get XXXXXX some good play."

Why? What changed?

 

I get that. But the people in charge made a decision. He didn't like it. Too fucking bad. Talk about being a diva. I sometimes differ with my boss and I give my input but once he makes a decision, I carry it out.