TBL talks to Karen Crouse

They act like they've never seen a fortysomething woman before. I am older than Karen by a few years, so I hope I can say that.

She's a really nice person, probably too nice to say no to an interview request from that idiot and avoid the comments of the morons who frequent that blog. My guess is she never read it before.

 

And I don't see anything wrong with dishing that up in appropriate doses. I don't want a beat writer who turns in a story on the left guard's football-playing sister on the same day the team overhauls the secondary.

There's an issue of relevance. Your mistake is thinking the only alternative to "my grandma and I used to bake cookies together" is play-by-play or "we have to sharp in all three phases of the game."

Seems like Buster Olney did an exemplary job of covering baseball for the Times without abdicating the basics.

 

The Times also covers business stories different than 99 percent of the newspapers in this country. I actually read business stories in the New York Times.

 

You are thinking theoretically and wrongly. I remember that story. It was in the Sunday paper. There was no fucking news. There rarely is with an NFL team in the Sunday paper. The stories are usually filed on Friday. Nobody missed a thing.

And I really don't think people are missing much, if anything, at other times, either. But if you have specific examples in which they did, enlighten us, please.

 

I certainly don't have specifics to match up with your definitive assertion that there was no fucking news that day. Who would?

Nor did I spend that week in the Jets locker room that week to know that there may have been another story just as worthy among the 43 players, 20-man coaching staff and front office.

Seems like you've gotten just a bit irrational on this topic.

 

Abdicating the news? Hardly. The NFL coverage week has not changed much over the years, and human-interest approaches in and around the gamer/follow/mid-week conference call/preview are fine. And since Jolly knew what Karen offers(ed), he would be faulted if he wanted/expected something else from her.

 

tom jolly wanted to hire karen, an excellent writer, and the jets beat was the gig he had to offer. she got him to accept her terms of covering the beat in an unconventional way.

it was largely an experiment. karen did well enough to move off the beat to do more of the kind of touch-feely, "lifetime channel"-type pieces she enjoys. the times served their jets fans readers well by going back to covering the jets in a more conventional way.

don't see why this is a controversial topic. it took a couple of football seasons to work itself out. as for karen's treatment in the jets' press room, i'd like to hear from anyone else on the beat. from what i've heard, it's a chicken-or-egg deal. was karen treated rudely for no reason or because she came in there like a prima donna whose attitude was she was above the fray of "normal" beat writing? ??? ??? ???

 

I'm not irrational -- I'm pissy about it, certainly, but I'd be willing to bet I read the coverage more than you do. Your hypotheticals are incorrect. That's the problem with hypotheticals when they involve real people and real situations -- someone who is a regular reader may point out that, sorry, this isn't true. Got a problem with that?

I don't think any major stories were missed. I challenge anyone to point out a big story that was.

 

And of course it's easy to drop nefarious hints about someone on an anonymous message board. Gutless, true, but also easy.

 

Yeah, I have a problem with accepting your recall as gospel.

It's not even a question of missing a "big story," it's about providing day in and day out coverage of a beat that's relevant to someone who cares about the team. If I follow a football team, chances are quotes from a player's grandmother aren't going to be terribly relevant to me very often during the season.

I don't know Crouse. I read the interview and detected a certain arrogance, the suggestion that if <b>I'm</b> not interested in this football-related crap, surely the reader isn't, either.

 

I don't accept my recall as gospel, either. That's why I checked online before spouting off, unlike you.

And unlike you, I do know her. And I'm pretty sure that if you had worked with her at some point before her arrival in New York, you'd understand that this is a reporter who throughout her career has spared no effort and that this is not a matter of blowing off work, but of being different and being selective about what needs to be written about.

 

i don't see where it's even debateable that karen brought an arrogance to the beat. she took the jets beat simply as a means to get a job with the n.y. times and they allowed her to do the job as she liked by doing the kind of pieces she likes.

i don't think "missing big news stories" is the point. to my way of thinking, it's simple: were jets fans who read the times well-served by karen's time on the beat? i'd argue no. she didn't cover the team for football fans. she seemed to be trying to appeal to a different audience, to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.

the times was as culpable as karen. they used each other. jolly got what he wanted, another excellent writer on his staff. karen got what she wanted, a gig at the times.

was the experiment a success? the proof is in the pudding, i'd say. the times replaced karen with greg bishop, who seems to cover the jets the old-fashioned way. he takes his shots at doing off-the-beaten-path features -- like the best beat guys do -- without coming off like he's above it all.

but this is an old debate. i'd still like to hear from anyone karen left behind in the jets press room to discuss her attitude toward them.