User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
Page rendered in 0.5841 seconds
48 querie(s) executed
| ||||||||
Baseball Primer Newsblog — The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand Wednesday, January 26, 2011King Kaufman: Bleacher Report: I Don’t Give a Damn About Our Bad Reputation
Repoz
Posted: January 26, 2011 at 01:49 AM | 89 comment(s)
Login to Bookmark
Tags: media, site news, special topics |
Login to submit news.
BookmarksYou must be logged in to view your Bookmarks. Hot TopicsNewsblog: Bryce Harper not expected to receive offer from White Sox
(42 - 5:02am, Feb 23) Last: Baldrick Newsblog: Ex-Phillies star Howard joins ESPN's 'Baseball Tonight' crew (14 - 4:10am, Feb 23) Last: John Reynard Newsblog: OT - Catch-All Pop Culture Extravaganza (February 2019) (233 - 2:36am, Feb 23) Last: Dog on the sidewalk Newsblog: OT - 2018-19 NBA thread (All-Star Weekend to Twelfth of Never edition) (166 - 12:45am, Feb 23) Last: Booey Newsblog: The Nats want Trea Turner to attempt 75-80 stolen bases this year (3 - 12:32am, Feb 23) Last: DanG Newsblog: Marwin Gonzalez, Twins (12 - 11:46pm, Feb 22) Last: Buck Coats Newsblog: Texas Rangers: Brady Feigl not related to Brady Feigl after all | Fort Worth Star-Telegram (18 - 10:27pm, Feb 22) Last: base ball chick Newsblog: Reds having Michael Lorenzen prepare as a two-way player (17 - 10:10pm, Feb 22) Last: Howie Menckel Newsblog: Report: Manny Machado will accommodate Padres' top prospect with move back to third base (3 - 9:15pm, Feb 22) Last: JRVJ Newsblog: Cubs have sixth-best 2019 World Series odds, according to Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook (19 - 8:57pm, Feb 22) Last: cardsfanboy Newsblog: 538: Foul Balls Are The Pace-Of-Play Problem Nobody’s Talking About (27 - 8:55pm, Feb 22) Last: ERROR---Jolly Old St. Nick Newsblog: OT Soccer Thread, v.2019 (311 - 8:41pm, Feb 22) Last: Jose is an Absurd Kahuna Newsblog: Buster Posey, Pablo Sandoval, more Giants will have different look at plate (3 - 8:20pm, Feb 22) Last: What did Billy Ripken have against ElRoy Face? Gonfalon Cubs: Spring Training (42 - 5:38pm, Feb 22) Last: Pops Freshenmeyer Newsblog: Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 2-22-2019 (11 - 4:43pm, Feb 22) Last: What did Billy Ripken have against ElRoy Face? |
|||||||
About Baseball Think Factory | Write for Us | Copyright © 1996-2014 Baseball Think Factory
User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
|
| Page rendered in 0.5841 seconds |
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
1. AJMcCringleberry Posted: January 26, 2011 at 02:04 AM (#3736366)That’s a big goal for Bleacher Report this year.
Sounds like a slam to all the writers they already have there. Granted I have no idea how good the writing is over there.
Hello everybody, the goal is to get you guys to not suck. Go team!
I am now curious about one less thing in my life.
Wayne Rogers to Cool Papa Bell. Go!
And a little sex.
It was just announced that Google is going to change the way it ranks searches to cut out the so-called "content farms" that appear so prominently in current results. While King and I have disagreed in the past 24 hours about whether BR is a content farm, a possible interpretation of this kind of move is BR doing what it can to appear like a more conscientious, quality-concerned organization in an effort to not get cut out by Google's looming shift.
I like King and I want him to succeed, so I hope that's just my cynicism going crazy. But really: when your exceedingly lucrative empire is built on slide shows, cheesecake and free content from teenagers, it's hard to see what might make them force wholesale changes, as opposed to merely limiting that stuff enough to make Google's impending cut.
They have recently stepped up their game though, with creative new ideas like "The Hottest Underboobs in Sports".
EDIT: still accessible at ultimate-guitar.com, I had no idea.
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/j/joan_jett/bad_reputation_crd.htm
But they got a major boost this evening with Obama's "We Are a Nation of Google, Facebook and Bleacher Report” line.
Bleached for content.
Terrible.
/former BR editing intern
That's him using the whip? Looks more like a Marquess Kaufman or an Earl Kaufman than a King Kaufman. Of course, he took off his crown, so it's harder to fathom his kingliness.
My favorite bit is the 29 piece drum kit. Classic.
am stunned and thriled that google is actually addressing this.
currently: real reporters report stuff, it goes onto the internet, fans on their couches comment on it - and other fans looking for information about their team on the internet get directed to the fan on the couch.
nice (though mostly unpaid at first) work if you can get if for the couch guy, I guess.
New York Yankees: ESPNw Uses The Bombers In Pathetic Attempt To Be Get Popular
It includes these gems: "Is this the kind of reporting ESPNw is producing in order to get attention to a seemly dead website?
...
Obviously, because there have been launched since October 2010, and already are resorting back to the men to get an audience.
Ironically, all it is doing is making women look ridiculous and saying that we have no business reporting about sports. See, ESPN can get away with making a mountain out of an anthill because it has a loyal audience that has proven to come back again.
In defense of the story, what is the point to take a hypothetical answer and change it into something factual? Obviously the reason is because Derek Jeter and the Yankees is a popular topic, but to try and cause unwarranted friction is weak.
Even more so it is unmerited.
As a women myself, I hope ESPNw practices what it has preached from the start, as stuff like this effects all of our creditability and it is doing more harm than good.
As for Jeter, the Captain will not take the bait because he knows that today is today, and what the future beholds will be dealt with when the time comes."
However, as a Golden Bear alum and Oakland A's fan, he is (ahem) at the pinnacle of human evolution.
Does it count if I say that I'm sad that people only associate an awesome Joan Jett song with a television show that borrowed it as its theme song?
Don't get me wrong, it's a great song and I liked it before the show. But Freaks and Geeks is inner-circle good. Pedro 1999/2000 good.
Are you taking requests? How about the 17 hottest asses in college women's soccer? Or the 23 best cleavages in women's rowing?
Do a bunch of lazy hacks write for the site?
Well, based on what I've seen, this looks like the writing equivalent of becoming GM of the Royals.
Good luck King (honestly!)
That song was released three years before I was born
Don't get me wrong, it's a great song and I liked it before the show. But Freaks and Geeks is inner-circle good. Pedro 1999/2000 good.
To expand on my first post, the reason I was thinking of it was that I was trying to come up with great shows that lasted one season. The top two I came up with were Freaks and Geeks and Terriers.
I guess the inclusion of "New York Yankees" in the post title is an SEO gimmick ...
I've noticed some of the SBNation team blogs doing this, placing the city and team name before almost every post, which is nothing major I suppose but is nevertheless pretty jarring and repetitive. (Not meaning to dog SBNation, as I read several of their blogs and used to write one of them.) Team X is implied to be in the title of almost every post, since the blog is specifically about Team X. So there's no reason to put Team X in the title of every post unless you're trying to game Google or something.
Lucky Louie.
Trapper John could resect a small bowel before the backup generator turned the 4077th's lights back on.
The best one-season TV shows ever... EVER!... are TV Funhouse, Brass Eye, and The Honeymooners.
Bakersfield, P.D. gets my vote.
Honey West--no one could wear a black plastic jumpsuit better than Anne Francis*(RIP)
*with the possible exception of Diana Rigg
If not, that might be a good way to improve article quality.
*with the possible exception of Diana Rigg
Vince McMahon and King Mabel respectfully disagree.
I am now curious about one less thing in my life.
I always pictured King Kaufman as looking like Rich Rifkin, a pair of tough Jews with short and angry gray beards, even though up until I saw this picture of the Whipmeister I really had no idea what either of them looked like. It probably had to do with their alliterative names and nothing else.
let's have a vote
-- MWE
Excellent choices. What struck me about Firefly, at least the DVD-as-the-creator-intended version, was that it hit the ground running. Most shows use the first season to shake out the bugs. Even with other Whedon shows, like Buffy and Angel, the first season has a certain lightness of tone as the show figures out what it really wants to say. But with Firefly, it seemed that the show knew what it was from the get-go, and just about every episode hit upon those core themes.
Brisco had a really long first season -- 27 episodes. In fact, after watching short series like Firefly, the new Doctor Who, and Deadwood, I received the DVD set for Brisco and it didn't feel short or truncated at all. The whole John Bly storyline was set-up, advanced, and brought to a conclusion. It might have been good that it ended after that one season, a complete story, rather than continue on and suffer story fatigue.
i got almost no hits - the editors explained that i didn't write well enough to get any pub from them or be "featured"
the "featured" articles i read on the astros were written by males who sound like the guys who call in to sports radio shows
not sure what king is gonna do here, or if the idea is to get more writing, more bettah writing about boobulescent nekkid sluts with the tagline - oh yeah, guess how many of these here slutties think jetah should be traded for john danks?
Sadly, I think Fox learned a valuable lesson from that - that no matter how much they like a show and want it to succeed, sticking with it won't make an audience magically appear. Folks have grumbled about their quick hook ever since, but it sadly makes sense.
you make it sound like that's a BAD thing
Definitely a contender. Ditto for Freaks & Geeks & Brisco County Jr.
See also: American Gothic, Wonderfalls & Home Front (one of the characters was a rookie Cleveland outfielder, for godssakes!)
I agree. It was also a bit rushed, and on something like Showtime it could have taken more time to set everything up and execute it.
His father is a poster on Baseball Primer!
Mi Madre el Automovil
I'd like to hear your reasons for the dislike. I liked the show a whole bunch but I'm willing to hear why others didn't enjoy it so much.
Wayne Rogers to Cool Papa Bell. Go!
Wayne Rogers hurriedly left M*A*S*H carrying his personal effects in a suitcase...or satchel, if you will...
Do you know what the uncanny valley is? It's generally a reference to animation/video games that means that the closer we get to modeling actual humans, the more we notice the differences between the model and reality. Like, no one expects Mario from Super Mario 1 to look like a realistic human, so it doesn't bother you when he doesn't. However, when the Polar Express comes out, and they're trying to make the conductor look like Tom Hanks, it's actually creepy and disturbing, precisely because they're so close.
So, what does this have to do with Freaks and Geeks? Unlike other shows which are clear parodies of real life, F&G was close enough to be plausible, but every little tick they got wrong would drive me crazy. I'd just want to scream "IT WASN"T LIKE THAT!". I mean, I loved Veronica Mars but it was clearly a fictionalized version of reality, it wasn't trying to simulate reality.
It's possible this says more about my high school experience than it does about F&G though.
That's an understandable criticism. What are you referring to specifically? The Sam/Cindy romantic relationship?
I haven't watched the show in over a year or so, but I don't remember any storylines that were *too* unbelievable.
It's funny, despite remembering the promos and Ron Silver's classic bellowing of the district attorney line, I had completely forgotten the name of the show.
Of course I did, but I couldn't recall if it was Girls Bluc or Girls Bulc and I didn't want to ruin the line so I played it straight.
This makes the show sound kind of awesome, to me.
The problem with listing bad tv shows is there are too many. It would be like listing all the bad relief pitchers in baseball history. 2 shows that stand out for me, though, are Manimal and Nighthawk. Those shows hit me right at the age when I started to realize not all of tv is great. I never knew my father, but it must be like that moment when you find out your dad is not omniscient or immortal. A sad time in the life of Shooty...
You're in the Picture, the game show so bad that the second episode was replaced by Jackie Gleason apologizing profusely for being involved in the production of such a bomb.
Frank's Place. Apparently no DVDs because the musical rights are too expensive so you'll just have to take my word for it. :-)
That's an understandable criticism. What are you referring to specifically? The Sam/Cindy romantic relationship?
Honestly, it's been a couple of years since I watched it, and I only watched the first disk. I think it was more how they were complete outcasts.
They dial some of that back as time goes on. It's actually one of the good features of the show in my mind.
What strikes you as uncanny strikes me as a genuine portrait of what it FEELS like, rather than how it actually is. So, you meet the freaks in the same way that Lindsey does, as slightly exaggerated types - and you get to know them as she does.
All of the characters are a lot more complex than they first appear - but they don't beat you over the head with 'here is a moment that reveals something important about the character.' You just start to see their lives outside of the frame of the show as they bleed in.
Hey, they got Daria straightened out and it had the same problems. They should just get off their duffs and get Frank's Place straightened out too. I'm pretty sure my dad would bite the head off a cute woodland critter on network TV to get that show on DVD if it would help.
Whatever website I looked at said they're working on re-scoring the show "in a manner consistent with the material."
I mentioned Charles Burnett's "Killer of Sheep" here the other week and they had the same problem with its move from student film (at least at the time you could use what you wanted) to "commercial" release. They were able to get rights at a reasonable cost to all the songs except some Dinah Washington number. So they just re-used one of the other tracks.
That's good news, thanks, I'll pass it along.
Hey, they got Daria straightened out and it had the same problems.
Isn't musical rights what's held up any Batman DVDs?
way to figure that one out.
/sarcastic guitar playing a-hole
I do know that musical rights resulted in "W.K.R.P. in Cincinnati" first season on DVD being just terrible.
Parts of scenes had to be cut because they referenced a song that was playing, or voice-over replacement lines had to be done as they had to clip the music out in the background and replace it with generic ####.
One of the funnier 1st season episodes involved the crew putting together a 5 second montage of song clips (to make it "impossible" to win the prize for guessing the songs). In the original episode, they used 1 second snippets of 6 songs, and they get mentioned by name. In the DVD version, it's 6 random sound bites, and the artists/songs are made up.
It was such an awful mess (and, presumably, poor enough sales) that they haven't released Season 2 yet, even though it's been almost 4 years since the first season appeared on the shelves.
Which is a shame, since WKRP was one of the best ensemble comedies of the past 4 years.
I believe there are more general "rights issues" in that the show was made by Fox but the characters are owned by Warner Bros. I used to think that Warner was also just sitting on the property because the show is sillier than the current version of Batman (movie, animation, or comic book), but they went ahead and released the incredibly terrible Legend of the Super Heroes via Warner Archive, so that can't be it.
There are thousands of writers, mostly unpaid. B/R started as an open platform, anyone could sign up and start writing. That's no longer the case. You have to apply for approval by submitting a writing sample, and at some point -- I'm still learning so I'm unsure of the timing -- the site de-commissioned a lot of writers who did not meet the new, higher -- but still low by mainstream media standards -- bar. The quality of writing is a spectrum, from some very good writers to some who, to put it kindly, need a lot of work. As with any other talent spectrum, it's more of a pyramid, with many fewer at the top than at the bottom.
What B/R is trying to do is bring up the quality of all of it by providing editorial support, training, education, feedback and so on. A large number of the writers are college students or recent graduates who want to pursue a career in journalism, sports blogging or something related, and they're eager for help. Even those who might not be planning on making a career of it have incentive to improve their writing, because there are rewards on the site for doing so -- more recognition, better promotion, more traffic, the chance for their work to appear on the sites of B/R's various content partners (Hearst newspapers, Maxim, CBS, others), etc.
On Twitter, Kevin Goldstein compared it to hiring on as the GM of the Pirates.
That caricature of me is absolutely uncanny. Particularly so when I had my goatee and hadn't aged nine years since its execution. The artist is the brilliant Zach Trenholm.
Google made that announcement just last week, and my hiring has been in the works for about a month. And B/R has been working to move away from the original model -- which I can understand calling a content farm, though I would call the original model an open blogging platform in a niche area, not unlike the women's blog site BlogHer -- for quite some time, removing weaker writers, adding an approval process and, behind the scenes, building up the editorial support and feedback.
I am not qualified to speak for the company at this point, my fourth day on the job. I would guess, just speaking for myself, that the incentive for B/R to improve the quality is the same as it is for any other site. To be taken seriously, respected, attract better writers and content partners and so on and so forth. ESPN, the New York Times or anybody else could build traffic with more cheesecake slide shows etc. too. Why don't they do that? Most media outlets try to strike a balance between seriousness/quality and lighter/traffic-boosting fare. Everyone's balance point is a little different, and B/R is trying to get to its balance point from a historically unusual starting place, but I wouldn't say it's accurate to say there's no incentive for change. This is the Internet. The incentive for change is that everyone who doesn't change fails.
I just want to point out that, with occasional exceptions, for the seven years I wrote the column at Salon, which was the basis for the many kind words that have been spoken about me in this thread and others, I was the guy on the couch. I don't mean to say there's no value in "real" -- that is, firsthand -- reporting. There's enormous value. But there's value in other things too.
Well, there is reason to put Team X in the title of every post. It's because not everyone comes to the content by going to the site and perusing that team page. People see links, yes, on Google, and also in their e-mail, through social media, etc. But also, yes, it's to optimize the piece for Google (or lesser search engines) search. Search engine optimization is a legitimate business practice. We did it at Salon, they do it at the New York Times. It would be kind of stupid not to do it. If putting "Team X" at the beginning of the hed of each post about the New York Yankees results in more people reading those posts, what possible reason would there be for not doing that? Because some people find it annoying? What about all the people who wouldn't have found the piece if it didn't have that? They might have been annoyed by that.
For the most part, no, but B/R recently announced it is going to start paying select writers.
Just to reiterate: That's not me with the whip.
Good luck, King!
Um... it's probably too late. I'm thinking the whip is going to be your version of the flannel shirt.
Not music, I gather, so much as the various guest stars, both the credited ones and the people who would show up randomly, leaning out a window as Batman and Robin ascended a building. Apparently, the cameos were done on some sort of non-standard contract that only allowed for broadcast and syndication and specifically prohibited any other sort of exhibition. Nobody had considered home video much at the time, so Fox would have to run around negotiating with the estates of scores of people to release it now.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main