Petition to MJS: Replace Mike Hunt on Marquette Beat

[TallTitan34]

http://chn.ge/MQhmNk

[ronald dragon]

I like it!

[bobnoxious]

signed

[T.V. Diener 34]

signed

[ChicosBailBonds]

Watch the JS say, you're right....and you get no one now.  Some will argue that's the same thing. 

[silverback]

MJS has such disdain for MU hoops and the necessity to cover it that I'm sure covering it all is treated like a nuisance. They probably draw straws year to year to see who the unlucky writer will be – and then pay no attention to whatever that writer is producing.

[Silkk the Shaka]

You could pay a desperate, hungry, interested (interested being the operative word) recent j-school grad ~$30k/year and get a much better product than what Hunt puts out there. It's actually embarrassing how little he cares about his job. Let him cover something else or let him go.

Signed.

[mhendrick]

Who cares. There are so many sources of news these days that whatever the Urinal Genital reports is not worthy of anyones time. 

[We R Final Four]

Signed.

[macman320]

Signed

[Archie]

Who cares. There are so many sources of news these days that whatever the Urinal Genital reports is not worthy of anyones time. 

This!

[real chili 83]

Further, I nominate Dan "Cheese Wiz" Meyer, 83 alum, and publisher of the Milw Bus Times to take over for Hunt!

See page 283 of the 1983 Hilltop for the Cheese Wiz reference. 

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

They could pay our Paint Touches writer and incorporate.

[dgies9156]

Guys, why do you rely on the Journal-Sentinel for anything?

The J-S is People's Exhibit #1 as to why the newspaper industry is failing. Give 'em less and charge 'em more!

The paper does some good work, no doubt, but look at how thin and generally newsless the J-S is. Especially when you compare it to the Journal or the Sentinel 30 years ago.

J-S Management would rather cover a Green Bay Packers OTA than get deep into Marquette, the Bucks or anyone other than the Brewers, Packers and Badgers. And with the Badgers leaving WTMJ, it is a matter of time before they fall to Marquette-class in that paper.

As a practical issue, the problem the J-S has starts and ends with the Packers and Brewers. They throw so much of their annual budget at these two teams that their writers are taking comp time when they should be covering all basketball. Comp time is an alternative to overtime, which reporters are technically entitled, and means the reporters are making up for lost days off in-season by taking time off out-of-season. So we end up with Michael Hunt, who is 65 going on 90 and has the energy of a slow moving batch of pancake syrup.

[LastWarrior]

signed

[Litehouse]

Nobody that is on this site, or the other online outlets, is relying on the JS for anything.  But we're such a small minority.  For the casual fans, the only source they get for MU news is the JS and the local news.  The casual fans probably make up 90% of our season-ticket holders.  Those are also the people that will occasionally come to a big game and help fill the upper-deck.  Lousy coverage in the JS really makes it hard to expand our fanbase.

[Galway Eagle]

I think he should be fired but I don't think it's right to force someone out of his job because I'm unhappy with the entertainment being provided when theirs a million other outlets. 

[Hards Alumni]

Guys, why do you rely on the Journal-Sentinel for anything?

The J-S is People's Exhibit #1 as to why the newspaper industry is failing. Give 'em less and charge 'em more!

The paper does some good work, no doubt, but look at how thin and generally newsless the J-S is. Especially when you compare it to the Journal or the Sentinel 30 years ago.

J-S Management would rather cover a Green Bay Packers OTA than get deep into Marquette, the Bucks or anyone other than the Brewers, Packers and Badgers. And with the Badgers leaving WTMJ, it is a matter of time before they fall to Marquette-class in that paper.

As a practical issue, the problem the J-S has starts and ends with the Packers and Brewers. They throw so much of their annual budget at these two teams that their writers are taking comp time when they should be covering all basketball. Comp time is an alternative to overtime, which reporters are technically entitled, and means the reporters are making up for lost days off in-season by taking time off out-of-season. So we end up with Michael Hunt, who is 65 going on 90 and has the energy of a slow moving batch of pancake syrup.

+1 this is the case with most dailies in the US.  Most people get their news on the net.

[Windyplayer]

http://chn.ge/MQhmNk

Not sure I've ever seen a petition to remove an employee from a private corporation. But hey, if this is what it takes to hold a public-facing employee accountable for his shoddy work, then so be it. I think what would be even more effective is boycotting his page or any of his online articles, that's where MJS will feel it with less ad revenue as a result (probably not a lot, but maybe enough to make them reconsider their allegieance to Hunt). Also, write letters or call into the paper. I would imagine they ignore a lot fo them, but once they start seeing a pattern, they take notice. You can only ignore so many "Hunt sucks" letters/calls. 

[GGGG]

Why doesn't the MJS simply give Hunt his well-deserved retirement watch, and then contract with Paint Touches to provide content?  Wouldn't be all that hard...they tweet from games....they could make them responsible for a pre-game write up, post-game report, occasional blog entries, and a few feature stories per year.  They do a lot of this anyway, and it would be cheaper for them.

[mu03eng]

Not sure I've ever seen a petition to remove an employee from a private corporation. But hey, if this is what it takes to hold a public-facing employee accountable for his shoddy work, then so be it. I think what would be even more effective is boycotting his page or any of his online articles, that's where MJS will feel it with less ad revenue as a result (probably not a lot, but maybe enough to make them reconsider their allegieance to Hunt). Also, write letters or call into the paper. I would imagine they ignore a lot fo them, but once they start seeing a pattern, they take notice. You can only ignore so many "Hunt sucks" letters/calls. 

Ordinarily I'd agree with you....but reducing his page views will likely result in the MJS drawing the wrong conclusion....no one is viewing this content, must mean MU doesn't have much following/interest.  They likely won't see the connection to the quality of the product being the issue, like most newspapers these days.

[Coleman]

They could hire a recent grad as an intern who is actually excited about his job to do the beat writing, pay him $10 an hour, and it would be a huge improvement.

[4everwarriors]

Not in favor of this. Ya know, it's the man's livelihood. Nothin' more than an avocation or time waster for Scoopers. Y'all should just let the newspaper figure out their own issues. Really, who gives a chit?

[MUDagwood]

What a huge drop off from Rosiak. Never understood why Todd got demoted to Brewers coverage...

[GOO]

Agree with many.  Who cares about the JS Coverage.  If they gave great coverage as they did under the previous guy (Rosiak?), then they become very relevant and are one of the top go to sources for MU coverage.  

The JS is obviously a dying dinosaur.  Just dying a little faster because they don't really care about their product.  If they did, Hunt would have been gone a long time ago when it was obvious he couldn't handle the job and didn't care.

But if they don't care about how poor their coverage is, then I don't care.  Plenty of other sources.  If they care and want to get readers back like under Rosiak, then great.  But it is a lot harder to get eyeballs back once they lost them, so my guess is they realize this and will do as little as possible on the way down the drain.  

If they hired a free lance writer to cover the Marquette team, they'd do it cheaply and better. With real blogs updated a number of times a week, features on players and recruits and recruiting insider info, etc.  But they really don't care, that is the bottom line.