META: Tony Garcia added to troll/no sharing list

Submitted by Seth on January 29th, 2023 at 12:14 PM

It bothers me too that the Detroit Free Press hires professional trolls instead of just covering Michigan, but they're still trolls, and sharing their content is still trolling. I guarantee you will never, ever have to take a thing Tony Garcia says seriously. If your mom is like "Did you see what the Freep said?" tell her you guarantee she will never, ever have to take something Tony Garcia says seriously.

dragonchild

January 29th, 2023 at 1:33 PM ^

Nah, the media actively pursues a clickbait business model, and one of those is deliberately fomenting discord with bad-faith misinformation.  Red meat for some, outrage for others.  If a site gets 10,000 hits for insightful content or 1 million rageclicks, they'll take the million every time.

Related to this:  MGoBlog readers are terrible at walking past poisoned honeypots.

vablue

January 29th, 2023 at 9:31 PM ^

I do.  The original point was that banning ideas is soft and weak and how you start to create an echo chamber and all kinds of other bad things.  That can be done whether it is the government doing it or a private entity.  The idea behind it is the same, even if the reach is far shorter for a blog.

Seth

January 29th, 2023 at 1:19 PM ^

Sometimes "sources" are just spitting out misinformation in bad faith. The Freep regularly hires columnists for the sole purpose of saying mean things that will get Michigan fans to say "Did you see the mean thing the Freep said?" I don't want to reward them for going for that niche, and I don't want people who come to MGoBlog for legitimate information to be misled into thinking a guy like Tony Garcia will ever be a source of it. If some projecting whiny-ass loser calls you soft for ignoring them, well, keep ignoring them.

vablue

January 29th, 2023 at 2:19 PM ^

I have now gone to the free press and looked at the article.  I have to say, there is zero on there that is inaccurate.  At most, he is saying we should get a better explanation from Wards and Harbaugh for these events, he is not wrong.  If we get this uptight about questions about our program, we have gone the way of Sparty and then some.

I originally started reading this blog because I appreciated the hard truths that would often come from his posts.  The blog did not take the typical fan boy approach and told it like it was, for better or worse.  In the last year or so that has dramatically changed.  Something I noticed the most in the response from Seth and to some extent Brian when our basketball coach punched another coach on the field of play.  This banning shows how far the blog has fallen.  I do hope you start to recognize that and can turn the corner.  

Maynard

January 29th, 2023 at 2:47 PM ^

Came here for hard truths? HAHAHA. I love interacting here and getting some good information, but let's all be honest. This is a culty place that has become more of an echo chamber in recent years. This comment will get negged because you're not allowed to be critical of certain things, people, etc. And why would you be? University of Michigan athletics is quite literally the meal ticket for Mgoblog. There is an always growing list of people and sites that aren't allowed and the biggest critics in the past have been banned (everyone here should know the few I am referring to). 

So when other fanbases and media types write things that are critical of our programs, instead of just addressing the issues in a thoughtful manner with facts and letting people have their own opinions as a result, they are often just banned or there is a groupthink bullying effect. 

Reputations and stereotypes are earned for the most part. This just serves to reinforce those. It's weak at best in my opinion. Yes, I am aware most here disagree with that opinion.

vablue

January 29th, 2023 at 9:35 PM ^

It did happen.  His inability to throw a good punch is not an issue.  In fact, this is my biggest problem with Seth.  His first response was to try to make it anything but a punch, going so far as to attempt to make up a new word for it.  This is the ultimate in excuse making.  Bury your head in the sand and act like it didn’t happen.  It is exactly what Penn State did with JoePa, just on a significantly lesser issue.  

jmblue

January 29th, 2023 at 5:11 PM ^

I've never understood why this is the Freep's angle, but it seems like that's always been the case.

Growing up, I was under the impression that the Detroit News was the pro-UM paper and the Freep was pro-MSU.  We subscribed to the News, but on the weekend, when the joint edition came out, I had the "privilege" of reading Drew Sharp troll Michigan.  Even then, that seemed to be their thing.

Bluesince89

January 29th, 2023 at 1:09 PM ^

Det News too. Both are rags. Angelique is alright though. Wish Detroit didn’t have such terrible papers, though I am no fan of most papers these days. In the last year, I’ve canceled my NYT, WaPo, and WSJ subscriptions. Despite not usually agreeing with them on economics, I’ve kept my Economist subscription. I’m thinking about getting Financial Times.