If you're like us you probably missed Miami Herald FIU sports reporter Pete Pelegrin's epic, bridge burning farewell notice to the paper this morning. Probably because it was posted on the Herald's own oft-neglected FIU sports blog, and really who cares enough about FIU sports enough to read much about it? That's why Pelegrin quit infact, because the paper, he feels, was severely curtailing his coverage of the program.
Basically take the "I" out of "FIU," and you'll get the general sense of how Pelegrin feels about the Herald.
The lengthy, bitter post has now been taken down from the blog, but sports blog The Wiz of Odds saved a screenshot which you can read here. In fact, please do before you continue reading this.
Ok, done?
Pelegrin's first complaint seems to be that his name and picture were taking off of the title and logo of the blog, which just seems petty. (Notice how this is not Kyle Munzenrieder's Riptide, and my face has not been photoshopped onto that weird little surfer man above. Trurth be told I hate the name [2.0, really?] and logo of this blog, but it really doesn't bother me. The fact the Herald made a habit of featuring reporter's pictures in blog logos in the first place seemed weird and unnecessary. Who wants to see those mugs anyway?)
With that bit of trivial anger out of the way he goes on to some juicier claims. Mainly that a front page sports story he was working on, about an FIU basketball player, was, at the last minute, relegated to page three of the sports page in favor of two stories about the University of Miami basektball team.
In fact, much of his complaints seem to be that FIU coverage is regularly ignored and underfunded compared to stories about the Hurricanes. Of course, when the Golden Panthers win something like 5 national football championships and another 4 in baseball, someone might care. When the schools students and alumni start filling up games, maybe people will care more.
But isn't that part of Pelegrin's job as a reporter? To turn in the kind of stories and prose that get people to take notice, to get interested in the team? Sometimes it's hard to squeeze blood from a stone, but in the day and age when attention to a story can be easily measured in web hits reporters better start squeezing their beat until they break a finger.
Sure, it seems like his ability to cover FIU sports have been thwarted recently -- The Herald wouldn't let him attend games or practices, or send him off to cover tournaments -- but he's been at the job for nine years. By now he should have built up a loyal audience to justify that spending.
In any event, reporter/blogger frustration is nothing new, and the urge to pen a fuck-off farewell is pretty common.
Do you think I don't get frustrated with my job? Do you know how true these recent stories about "blogger burnout" ring? Don't you think that every single person at the Herald isn't frustrated with the state of their paper right now? They have to be unless they're completely stupid.
But do they quit in a huff and dash off a giant "Fuck You" letter on their newspaper-hosted blog because their niche beat is being ignored? Nope. You accept the reality. Make a few cryptic complaints on your twitter. Get drunk and bitch about with your friends, and if you have to leave, you at least do it with a bit of class.
At the very least, he could have done it a bit better. The reporter/blogger bitter send off is an art form now. Perhaps a "A Long, Dark Early Evening Of The Soul With Isiah Thomas?"
