I guess you want my reaction on Mr Logan ?

New York Islander Fan Central | 8/12/2009 10:03:00 PM | |
I added some thoughts to this thread to be as fair as possible Friday night and edited a few items also because in my haste to experiment with codes and colors I did not do a very good job on this entry and I was not as fair with Mr Logan as I should have been.

I'm sorry about that and apologize to Mr Logan and the folks who read the earlier entry.
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All due respect to Greg Logan however I'm not sorry to hear of his departure from the Islanders beat which Mr Botta broke and Katie Strang confirmed.

No doubt this is the right move for everyone involved in my estimation.


Mr Logan is a professional writer with over thirty years experience and it was never his fault he was not a die-hard passionate New York Islander Fan. The job did not require him to be but fair or not that's what this team desperately needed which made him a bad choice from day one.

I started NYIFC with the viewpoint he did an excellent job his first year.


In the end Mr Logan was simply a case of wrong writer, team and perhaps most of all the wrong era for what was required.

For the same reason it could mean Katie Strang is not the right person either.

Alan Hahn was a die hard Islander fan and things did not end well there either with Mr Botta in April 2006 critical of Newsday coverage. Back before blogs he did a few mailbags a year but in those days Mr Hahn wrote a column for the Sporting news. Peter Botte wrote for faceoff.com on the Isles and if I recall did THN publication reports.

Cutbacks finished all these things for hockey.

That passion I wrote about (above) is how Marc Berman in the Post used to write about this club which you saw recently in a rare article. That's how Peter Botte covered the team for years when given proper space at the Daily News and that's what George Vecsey used to give us at the NY Times long ago (with countless other writers over decades) and what Mr Botta has given us at Point Blank over two years and why he has made the connection he has with the fans.

Larry Brooks right or wrong goes all out for his team, his passion is always there.

Let me add all those veteran writers I am praising here never had to blog several times a day in a 24/7 media world now and Mr Brooks has a web editor or someone to do many of the NY Post blog updates. Newsday did not provide Mr Logan any help on a daily basis in that department and when he hit the road he was alone.

Then again it has to be mentioned how someone like Michael Fornabaio did interviews by telephone when the Ct Post did not let him go to Norfolk or the West Coast/Canada last season or blog with everything he could about a game and he's been the Sound Tigers writer since day one. He has had to change how he does things too and in the AHL there are few plane rides with three games in three days often. Some may recall Mr Fornabaio's auto accident a few years ago so it does not seem like he has a seat on the bus for road games. Mr Logan was not happy about traveling problems to Edmonton from Colorado one season.

Mr Botta If I recall praised Mr Logan and how he got from Buffalo to Philadelphia for an interview one season.

But that passion has been missing at Newsday under Mr Logan for our team. Was this a fair standard to ask of him? Perhaps not.

Maybe if this team had four daily beatwriters like it used to things would not have been so noticeable.


Some things however were noticeable that go beyond him to the sports department.

I saw our team outblogged by a good five to one ratio by the Ranger counterpart in Mr Zipay at Newsday which sports editor Hank Winnicki (or whoever makes such decisions) should have immediately recognized doubling and even tripling up Islander coverage to supplement the dwindling city space cutting down or outright eliminating Ranger coverage.

At the very least Mr Winnicki (if he had the final call/whoever did) should have switched Mr Logan, a former Ranger beatwriter who appeared on Msg specials back to his former assignment with Steve Zipay moving to the Islander beat.

Mr Logan never seemed to make any attempt to make up the disparity from the city publications with his Newsday blog space.

Is that a lot to ask on my part? Perhaps, however for passionate professional writers about a subject it's something you feel obligated to do. For a veteran writer from a different generation like Mr Logan blogging is new and more work to do with news breaking at all hours.

There is all the traveling plus a life outside of his assignment.


The point is other teams have that level of information or print space, our team did not.

I wrote game previews and home/road coverage almost every day and I could see the differences between Islander coverage and other clubs whether it be Tarik El-Bashir in Washington, George Richards in Florida or Mr Zipay in the local paper.


We saw it in Newsday too.

Steve Zipay would go cover his team during vacation or on off-days, Mr Logan did a few times and put off vacation when Scott Gordon was hired last August. He also had a lot more comp time he told us he had to take which included long stretches of the season two years ago which he is entitled to like everyone else employed but as a fan it is frustrating to see less coverage.

Newsday opened an NHL blog for Mark Herrmann which had one Islander update and nothing else for close to a month early. Arthur Staple was switched to hockey, Islander coverage did not pick up (Ranger coverage did) and not nearly enough features.

Mr Logan's fault? Absolutely not.

I would suggest change does not mean enhanced coverage which we heard a decade ago when Sportchannel became Fox Sports Net and now Msg+ whatever. We'll see if the Newsday peripheral writers like Mr Herrmann, Baumbach or Rieber do a few rip jobs on the club which will let us know who was really behind this change.

What else do you want me to repeat again?

That even before Cablevision bought the paper the staff was made up of former Ranger beatwriters and admitted fans who kept the glass half filled on one club and empty on the other and now that Cablevision owns the paper the writers never are critical of the teams they own but go off on other teams in this market.

Old news.

Having written that Mr Logan at times stepped up his reporting (I remember how he ran down Ryan Smyth in a Minnesota airport after the trade here and got an interview late at night) and did a lot of outstanding features with the kids plus kept pace with the weekly insider but seemed to work hardest on the negative angles whether it be anonymous quotes on coaches or comments on DiPietro's maturity and health that were over the top in my estimation and stood out too.

Mr Logan's complaints regarding the NHL injury policy (from league meeting at finals) led to outright daily assaults for a while from the Newsday staff about the Isles which no team with injuries in North America had to endure from their local media here that I saw as out of line which began that June when Mr Logan learned of Guerin-DiPietro summer surgeries,. Perhaps his intention was to provide us information but other teams were not treated like this for following the same league policy.

Mr Logan got it wrong on draft day and called it wrong on other things? Get over it, he did not have to share anything.

You want someone who is generous and tries to give us more whether it's right or wrong in the end, that's where he failed most in my estimation. How many times did Mr Zipay ask his readers questions or ask for input to keep conversation going or suggest a player for his team?

How often did Mr Logan?

My Thanks and best of luck to Greg Logan whatever sport or beat he is assigned who many have told me is a gentleman.

You would be completely mistaken thinking my criticism of him was personal or beyond NY Islander hockey content. I only wish I could have praised his work more.

Bottom line:

I'm someone who wrote an amateur fan blog about my favorite team, it's easy for me to sit on the sidelines and second guess but what I saw from other teams and writers was impossible for me to ignore because our team needed the same thing and there were fair content questions I tried to ask here along the level of a Sandomir, Mushnick, Best or Raissman with my own hockey content.

This blog did daily articles as part of it's function.


Mr Logan has been a professional writer for over thirty years on an entirely different level covering several sports and has earned respect from the professional media across the board for coverage.

That's who Greg Logan is and it is something we all should respect.

I would like to see Mr Logan get assigned something he is passionate about but that is likely beyond his control like most writers. Our beatwriter from a decade ago at Newsday (John Valenti) now does the weather.

Finally for those who think it's impossible to find life-long New York Islander Fans in the professional media today I submit the 8/12 New York Daily News feature here.

You asked, I told and you even got another entry to read.

I got to try out another code for better reading while not changing everything on the side bars but still private or public blog no excuses at all for me doing such a poor initial entry.


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