I read with interest the September 25 C-Notes item on the PD (“PD Reporters: Don’t Accuse Us of Having Balls”). It sounds like the PD Metro department isn’t much better off than us toiling on the second floor in the Sports Department – another glowing bastion of ineptitude.
Getting Terry Pluto as a columnist? Great move. Wonderful, generous and extremely nice guy. Plus, in the few weeks he’s been here, we’ve already seen him in the newsroom more often than prima donna/big ego/my crap-don’t-stink columnists Livingston and Shaw combined. (Oh, and don’t think Livy and Shaw are loving all the attention Terry’s getting, either. Tough nuts, guys – Terry deserves it.)
But other than that, the Sports Department’s morale sucks – too bad, because Goldberg is pushing Sports hard to be this paper’s big-ticket item.
We have an aloof sports editor (Roy Hewitt) who’s hardly around and only seems concerned with making sure the paper keeps financing his Olympics junket trips (Beijing 2008, here he comes!). The editors under “Busy Whiskers” – our pet nickname for Roy – are either amiable yes-men or young, overly ambitious types who love calling meetings and “brainstorming sessions” to show off their power (such as it is).
Every two days, someone from another department – who apparently always had the dream to be a sportswriter – is shuffled over to work in our department. (Great morale boost for the sports copy editors who also want shots to write, huh?)
Page 2 has been a hodgepodge mess. We got general-assignment writers who actively backstab and undermine at least one of our team beat writers at every turn (with the tacit approval of editors). And I can’t recall the last time I read a real, compelling investigative piece (free of fluff and tippy-toeing) on our page.
So to my Metro colleagues, I say: “Courage.” We all have our struggles inside 1801 Superior, and ain’t none greater than being in the Sports Department these days.
–A PD Sports drone (Sorry, tough-guy butt smoocher Mike McIntyre, I won’t sign my name)
This article appears in Sep 26 – Oct 2, 2007.
Bravo to you, mystery Plain Dealer employee, for this! The Sports section of the PD has long been its most mediocre (although the other sections don’t exactly offer stiff competition), and is in need of a major housecleaning. If that’s not possible, getting rid of Bill Livingston, Bud Shaw, Mary Schmitt Boyer and Branson Wright would be a welcome consolation prize. Then, after the sports pages are improved, move on to other sections in need of writer purging, so we could say “good riddance” to the likes of Elizabeth Auster, Brent Larkin, Michael Heaton and John Soeder.
Now, LeBron.
You know people take this stuff seriously when you show off like this.
Yeah, but I would imagine having to work with a cocksucker like Mitch Albom would have to be worse.
The PD should bring Brian Windhorst over from the ABJ too. Branson can’t carry his pen.
I agree that the CPD has stale, predictable articles. Until Terry Pluto came over, I found it hard to ever find any information of value on their site.
A housecleaning would be very welcomed for this reader.
You may have been dead-on with your depictions of the arrogant Livingston & Shaw, but, hey; at least they’re legit columnists with real opinions and real writing styles. If you think “Mr. Obvious” is a columnist, boy, have you ever discredited yourself as a critic. Pluto’s so ordinary and so boring that he belongs in a place like, well … Akron. ( I’m sure he was quite a deal there.)
Will turn out to be one of Susie’s misguided moves. ( More to follow. )
J Blaisdell
Shaker Hts.