RON MALY HAS BEEN WATCHING THE PARADE GO BY FOR A LONG TIME. THIS IS ONE OF HIS WEBSITES.

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Readers-Turned-Critics

You never know what's going to wind up in the letters to the editor section of the paper these days. 

Indeed, there was this letter the other day in the Des Moines Register:

Now that Fred Hoiberg is headed to Chicago, Register reporter John Naughton and his superb May 28 piece on Harrison Barnes [“From Ames to NBA, Barnes remains grounded”] present clear evidence that fact-based pieces, written with heart and sincerity, exist in stark contrast to what seems like copy-and-paste work of others. The most recent example has been the repeated speculation proffered by one longtime Register sports columnist, who is more interested in setting up doltish straw men and repeatedly insulting intelligence with what we know already.

Anyone with a Twitter account could glean all along that Freddy was out of here. But the tone of these seemingly endless number of “Hoiberg-might-be-leaving!” columns has been, “If you dummies thought this, think again! Here’s more speculation with the same exact facts from yesterday, and the day before, and the day before!” I enjoy the Register and will never end my subscription. But these columns pose more evidence that evolving media have been understandably difficult on print-based employees.

— Greg Goaley, Des Moines

Lots of media critics out there, I guess. Evidently, people in the news business are underestimating readers far too often these days. They don't realize how much attention people pay to news on the Internet, Twitter, Facebook and whatever.  Those same readers-turned-critics  can't be fooled when they notice that some media people credit sources for the basis of stories that say who is being interviewed for this coaching job or that coaching job. Readers see the same things on CBSsports.com, SI.com and ESPN.com on their computers that the sportswriters see. So that stuff should no longer be regarded as local column material. Like I say, newspapers [that are losing circulation daily] can no longer fool their readers.