On Saturday, you may recall that I took offense to the very poorly-written article appearing on the Free Press website, written by one James Jahnke. I e-mailed my response to Jahnke, and he was kind enough to to provide a prompt reply:
Thanks for the note, Tim.I’m at work right now and don’t have time to read that post on the blog. (I did skim it, however. Embarrassed to be in the same state? Ouch.) But I’m guessing it says pretty much what all of my other e-mailers have been saying.
You should know that I was asked by the Freep Web editor to write that column as a counterpoint to the why-Pryor-should-go-to-Michigan column that ran on the site a few days earlier. I reckon that if the site editors properly packaged them as a point-counterpoint, the vitriol would have been reduced a little. Instead, people think I wrote that on my own initiative, which isn’t true in the least.
Anyway, I regret doing it for several reasons. First, I’m not a columnist. I’m a copy editor. In hindsight, to ask a copy editor to write a column during a 30-minute break in his “normal” shift was unfair. It prevented me from putting sufficient thought into my points and crafting them into a suitable fashion. I admit that the column, as it ran, was shallow. Oh, well. I won’t make such a mistake in the future.
Hope your blood pressure isn’t off-the-charts on account of me,
JJ
He’s mostly just making excuses (but what else can he do with such a bad article?), but fairly straightforward, and I certainly appreciate that he took the time to respond.
Posted under Recruiting
Tags: Football, Recruiting
i think he was asked to write that article b/c of the valenti rant on 97.1 the other day concerning the original ‘RM transfer opens door for TP’ article. valenti went on & on about the pro-UM media bias in Det.
I think Jahnke was pretty clear that there was a plan for a point-counterpoint on the topic the whole time, just poorly executed by the Freep.
To think the Free Press would commission a non-columnist to write an article in response to an idiot like Valenti seems a little far-fetched.