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His beef was that I was not accountable to actually seeing Physioc in the press box. Wonder how often Whicker hangs out with Jaycee Duggard.
BTW, the "worst" person was the South Carolina Republican who made a fool of himself during Obama's health care speech.
Seems reasonable. Whenever I'm unsure how to react to a news story, I like to see what our country's moral arbiter has to say.
You sir, are my hero. Although I would have written it about Wayne Hagin.
You sir, are my hero. Although I would have written it about Wayne Hagin.
please don't mention that name, I had to live with this guy as an annoucer for over a month, and that is way more than any decent human being should ever have to do(and it was funny I was told he was actually good---not decent, not acceptable, but good---really in what ####### world is wayne hagin considered good?)
That is indeed my e-mail. I wrote to the editor (of the paper, not the sports editor) after seeing from Craig's original link the responses people were getting from Whicker. I was actually starting to get a little peeved that the editor never responded when I saw the apology column and my e-mail.
Yeah, the guy's a talentless hack. Yeah, it was a stupid idea for a column and very poorly written to boot. He's a bad writer. But I don't see why the column makes him a bad guy. He didn't say anything derogatory or take delight in the plight of the kidnapped girl. He didn't say anything that could remotely be interpreted as hurtful toward her.
It's a bad column. Not hateful, not offensive, just bad. So what?
please don't mention that name, I had to live with this guy as an annoucer for over a month, and that is way more than any decent human being should ever have to do(and it was funny I was told he was actually good---not decent, not acceptable, but good---really in what ####### world is wayne hagin considered good?)
I had to deal with him for two years. Which would be pretty terrible if I didn't also have to listen to Ron Fairly for six.
I'm sure he checked to see which editors were on vacation and which ones were informed of the content.
Wait, he didn't? But......
I think it is a little worse than that. It is really, really odd--a bizarre combination of forced humor, cliche'd writing, and jaw-droppingly inappropriate juxtapositions/tones. The girl was taken from South Lake Tahoe, and as far as I know she had no connection to Orange County per se and there is no indication she is/was interested in sports at all. She was held in Antioch, so it is not like this is a "SoCal" story. It reads like Whicker wanted to recycle the old "Let's look at wacky sports factoids over the last X years" column and simply inserted Dugard as a hook, as Craig indicates in the quote in the lead-in. If there had been a connection, I could see saying Whicker just misfired. While I certainly don't think he intended to hurt her or to mock Dugard's plight (remember, too, she has two kids who have been victims here as well) this is a bit worse than just a joke gone bad.
It's a miracle, a credit to the family, doctors etc who never gave up on him, parade is planned, etc.
Almost this exact column would have been written, and it could have been (almost) cute - "Hey, sports junkie, here's a quick overview, because it will take a while to be at your best "Larry in La Jolla" form again..".
Instead, you have this legacy of devastation and the consolation of her being alive, at least.
Yet the column doesn't seem to recognize the difference.
The kicker underscores that, to say the least..
As numerous people have said, while there doesn't seem to be malicious intent on the part of the writer, this really isn't about intent.
This girl's story and her family's story is (or should be) deeply saddening and horrifying to any sane person that hears or reads about it. Anyone who trivializes it in any way close to the way this writer did, regardless of intent, is going to produce some very strong negative emotional reactions, and rightfully/naturally so. I can't not be revolted by this column just because I know that its writer is probably just a well-meaning dope.
If you had ever watched a game at the old LA Sports Arena, you'd know.
Seriously, the USC football team still plays at the Coliseum, of course, but the Coliseum (like the Rose Bowl, where UCLA plays football) is now a (functional) historical landmark, and USC is so good in football that it has become sort of retro-hip, like their unis. OTOH, the Sports Arena is just a building from the 1950s that the Clippers used to play in. I saw NBA and SC games there, and it was sort of cool to feel like you had been transported back to 1969 for a game, but if I were trying to compete with UCLA, Arizona et al in hoops, I wouldn't want my team playing there, either.
And you know what this means? Whicker will probably get to appear on "Cold Pizza" or "Outside the Lines", maybe even a cable news show to fill some time, and he gets more publicity than he ever would had he written a solid piece on some important matter.
That's how perverse our media is these days.
You'll be more shocked to learn that in 1991 he wrote a similar piece regarding former hostage Terry Anderson that began "Cleaning out the notebook while hoping Terry Anderson didn't have overdue library books . . ."
No, Mark, what she really went through (with the being cut off from her family and made to depend upon a man who raped her for her very survival) was deprivation.
That line makes it sound like if she had been kidnapped and raped for 18 years but had been allowed to watch a few baseball games and play a round of golf every now and then, it wouldn't have been so bad.
The conversational tone upsets me too. I almost picture him sitting across from her and telling her all these sports factoids she doesn't care about while she has this horrified look on her face, wondering why this idiot thinks she cares about all this crap he's spouting after everything she went through.
Ya think?
Ironic that Terry Anderson was released in 1991 - the same year Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped. Judging from his interview, Whicker still does not appear to get he may have done something others find very offensive.
Good idea by the author to shift blame to computer nerds. I'm a little saddened by what is considered acceptable in Whicker's fantasy-land. He realizes that you don't trivialize the Holocaust or 9/11, but child rape and imprisonment is fair game for a stupid sports column.
Great idea by the editorial staff to say it "wasn't me and I'm not going to tell you who let it go through to print either."
Now, we can certainly criticize the habits that got them into a situation where the tail wags the dog editorially speaking, but it's also a tough damn spot for what I presume to be a junior editor to be in.
Also worth thinking about how those irresponsible bloggers in computer land are able to avoid stepping on their dork like this despite the fact that we don't, generally speaking, have editors.
Craig, check the article linked in your comments section, which is just as bad as Whicker's despite having the advantage of knowing how poorly Whicker's was received (and, of course, trying to piggyback on it). A primary reason bloggers don't step on their dorks is because most of them don't have any audience beyond a few close friends and Repoz.
I understand that in "computer-land" people tend to be less inhibited than they are face-to-face, but that doesn't mean those opinion are totally invalid, and are probably no less inhibited than those that write letters or make phone calls. I don't understand writers that still totally dismiss opinions on the internet as invalid.
He's also falling into the Buzz Bissinger trap of "I can find one internet commenter who dropped an f-bomb, therefore, they are all vulgar and stupid."
Good point.
As for that other article, I found it to be a bit much.
It kind of reminds me of the old joke about Neil Armstrong, after returning from the moon, runs into an old friend on the street. As Armstrong starts to say what he's been up to, the friend interupts: "There's a sale going on at Safeway's".
"It's impossible to unring a bell or to bring back a column that has already been transmitted."
Not to nitpick, but while it is impossible to unring the bell it IS possible to remove the column from the paper's website and to not link to the freakin' thing during the apology though.
He didn't. He just criticized some of the responses he received.
That is false. He used a small percentage of the responses he received to draw wide, sweeping conclusions about the entire internet.
Where does he do the things alleged in #128? I didn't see it in the posted interview.
How is that not a sweeping generalization about the internet?
the word some I would imagine.
Right, but his comment was that "some of the responses" say a lot about "computer-land," i.e., the internet as a whole. That was the point of #128: He's using a few comments to make sweeping generalizations about the internet.
That's not quite the same as what #128 said.
His only apology seems to be "sorry this pissed all you guys off, that wasn't my intent." He still doesn't seem to get what it was that pissed everyone off.
I disagreed with your comments that he's "totally dismiss[ed] opinions on the internet as invalid" and did what Bissinger did, b/c he didn't discredit the validity of the opinions (at least in the posted article).
Also, we don't know what the general nature of the responses were - the BBTF crowd like Craig obviously gave reasonable, mature feedback, but I wouldn't be shocked if 80% of his inbox is personal attacks, and if so I can't say I blame him if he's a bit cynical about the nature of discourse on the internet right now.
He thought he had a good hook for a story about what's happened in baseball over the past 18 years. He didn't -- it was incredibly misguided and out of place -- but I don't think he meant any harm.
I agree. I believe him when he says he didn't intend any malice. But I think its amazing he still doesn't seem to know what was wrong with it. Its like your uncle who makes a racist joke, but then doesn't get why anyone is upset with it because he is good friends with a black guy.
he's more like michael jackson who couldn't seem to get why so may people thought it was not ok for him to share his bed with young boys. he's kept insisting it was "sweet" and "innocent" or som nonsense like that
if whicker really REALLY thinks that Before Computers wouldn't nobody have called the editor/written letters, he crazy
and if the paper editors think that whicker should be allowed to write anything at all without having to run it past them, why he no bettern the rest of Us (horrors) bloggahs
Wait a minute...Monty and I are related!
It's still worth reading the thread, but the conclusion you've drawn seems to be the consensus of contributors to this thread.
After further thought, I believe Mark Whicker most likely came up with the hook Congratulations, Jaycee. You left the yard. and then decided to write a column leading up to this "witty" line by regurgitating the "Terry Anderson: While You've Been Gone" column blueprint.
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