Rob Parker controversy

And their circulations went ... in which direction, exactly?

 

Expecting to see what I've spent the last 30 minutes or so reading, I stayed away from this thread until now. Gosh I wish I would've stayed away.

I guess now I'll "GTFO".

 

Well, Rob Parker was a token at the Detroit News, which for decades and decades has been the Official Archie Bunker Newspaper of Metro Detroit.

After years and years of huffing about "those people" and how they had run the whole damn city into the ground (and probably not coincidentally, under the benevolent direction of Gannett -- at the time), undoubtedly the News thought they were being radical and cutting-edge by hiring Parker as their "Nat X."

I don't think it ever produced any particular spike in their readership in the African-American community. Reporting issues of concern to the African-American community might have done that, but they've never seemed sufficiently concerned to bother with that shit. :

(They've also been notorious for being as gay-friendly as Andrew Dice Clay, and a few years ago, suddenly decided to start giving a lesbian sydnicated columnist prominent play. Basically their whole approach to everything is tokenism: 'see, we like blacks! we have one on staff!! we like lesbians, too! see, we have one of those, too!' Meanwhile, throughout the rest of the paper, it's back to Archie Bunker.)

 

for sure, that question for Marinelli was an attempt at humor. that's all it was and it didn't have a thing to do with the Lions' plight. if it was meant attract attention, it certainly succeeded.

 

There was a time when you got some help from unions in paying the most essential bills. Now, if you're working in a union shop, you're told don't cross a picket line, and screw your family and financial obligations.
You are not a profoundly selfish coward. On the contrary, you are that if you don't take care of your family. Unions certainly aren't taking care of workers like they used to.

 

Bullshit. Parker himself says the intention was to "stick the knife in and draw blood."

http://blogs.usatoday.com/thehuddle/2009/01/fired-columnist.html


As a teeny-tiny footnote to the whole brouhaha, Parker was absolutely correct on his basic premise: Marinelli was a nepotistic buffoon packing his staff (which certainly needed every bit of all the qualified help it could get) full of all the bungling relatives and flunkies he could find who, like him, unconditionally failed at everything they did.

Back to the horse-flogging.

 

what I meant, and pardon me if I didn't convey it in the right way, is that I think he thought it was an attempt at humor and in an extremely poor way, of course. the question should have never been asked. had i been at the press conference, I would have been asking, "huh?"

 

So if you cross that picket line,will you turn down the pay raise and benefits that your fellow union members picketed for? Will you donate part of you're salary to the members who are out on strike? Or are you just a selfish Fuck who thinks about nobody but himself?

 

if that tale is true, i bet that columbia prof is soooo proud of rob. : : :

i've never been an advocate of j-school teachings. oh, but rob went to the columbia school of journalism. sheeesh.

 

OK, first of all, have you ever worked at a union paper? Were you a member of a union? When I left a nonunion paper to go to a union paper, my salary went up by 40%. I would say that is "taking care of my family." When I left that union paper and went to this union paper, I was given health care for which I paid NOTHING. I would say that is "taking care of my family." Unfortunately, in subsequent contracts, it was negotiated in that people had to pay some for the health care but it is far less than at nonunion papers. Also, at union papers, you have a REAL pension, not just bs 401(k) so when you retire, every month, you'll be sent a REAL check with REAL MONEY. I would say that's taking care of my family. And also, when Detroit union members went on strike, they were sent checks from the union and other unions, including the one I was in at the time, sent money to the Detroit union to give to its members who were out on strike. I would say that was taking care of our UNION FAMILY. Please do not post and say things of which you know nothing.

 

Not all guilds are the same. Some unions are better than others. I've been in strong ones. I've been in weak ones.
As for Rob being a "token" I think that its very sad that in 2009, when the first African-American President-elect is preparing to take office that you still have to look around a newsroom to find a person of color. It's even worse when you look at sporting event and see few people of color asking questions.
Rob Parker is Rob Parker. He's not a reflection on every minority journalist out there. Yet, the tone by some of the posts here would easily leave one to think otherwise.

 

it had to be a dreadfully slow, slow morning of sports for Mike and Mike (can we talk over each other?) to have Rob Parker on for his however many minutes of alleged fame. amazing.