Where's The New York Islander Full Time Independent Professional Media in 2013?

New York Islander Fan Central | 7/17/2013 06:50:00 PM |
The answer to this question would be the New York Islanders have no professional full-time independent media in 2013.

The team does not make any real usage of it's website to report it's own news first or refuse to go in that direction even with Charles Wang not shy about speaking about why he's doing something to outlets who will not pay anyone full-time to cover his team. 

Those canned ITV interviews with direct quotes do not go very far. Sure a good job was done at the prospect game by the club.

Re-Tweeting  Articles & Showing Up Only For Three Islander Games Is Not Professional Coverage: 
Of course this never stopped some fringe media like Larry Brooks, Brett Cyrgalis, or Katie Strang from claiming they cover the Islanders beyond a few rip jobs from a far when the Rangers are not the opposition.

By that logic the Islanders are covered by beat-writers from the all-knowing Vancouver media too. 


So What Should I Read?
As I wrote the true professional media value left is the small town papers with direct quotes from players, when the Islanders hit the west coach they were covered better than they are in New York.

In other words, there's virtually no professional media value....Sorry. 

Problem Getting Worse:
I wrote the New York Islanders have the worst professional media of any major sports team in North America last year. The gap is only growing. In 1999-2000, when Islanders-Sound Tigers began the club had full time coverage in four professional newspapers. By 2007, when New York Islander Fan Central started the club had home game coverage in three papers during the regular season, one on the road at best.

Then by 2008 the same Msg that controls the television coverage, got full control of the print coverage.

Former failed media relations coordinators that claimed this would increase Islander coverage were wrong as usual while the pay-wall went up. (which NY Times also has done for a second time)

The Times had budget money to send Ranger die-hard Jeff Z Klein to go interview Cody Rosen, not to report he was in Flyers prospect camp the year before the Islanders drafted him?

There is always a Mike Sielski lurking for a selective hit-job on the club, not so much for a feature on John Tavares.  

The same New York City outlets too cheap to cover the club, were quick to put out editorials telling the pubic no taxpayer dollars for a new/renovated Coliseum, but waved the ad dollar pom poms for NYC teams getting taxpayer funded baseball stadiums often which also happened in New Jersey.

To be fair there were contrary articles in those same papers quick to point out no taxpayer dollars in-between the ones that claimed private financing.

No one from those outlet's are discussing the New York Islanders story, unless it's something with an overt negative tone. Yes, the same outlets that demanded Wang pay for his own Coliseum, feel James Dolan deserves a taxpayer exemption every year in perpetuity with an operating permit for Msg because his arena generates jobs/revenue for NYC.

Like the Islanders at the Coliseum never have? 

The Devils: 
The Devils still have a newspaper or two in New Jersey separate of Msg, the Post was too cheap to hire a full time replacement for overt negative, Mark (Neverson) Everson after going to the Stanley Cup finals, but their business reporter is quick to discuss their finances.

Sure the Devils have big media problems too. Lou Lamoriello never took the easy way out, and went the blogger route with his media relations department. 

Dolan's Newspaper:
No folks, I do not see the employees at James Dolan's paper as people who personally dislike the New York Islanders or who live to make our teams fans miserable which includes Dolan who even said in 1994 the other day he was rooting for the Islanders, but no doubt wants his Msg Coliseum, and the 300m in television money he pays the Islanders to finance it by them leaving New York entirely.

However let's be clear the employees working there need a job, and write what they are told to write if they wish to stay employed like any other publication where there are unwritten rules. There are countless articles on problems inside Dolan's Newspaper from employees themsevles to countless sports media bias questions.

The New York Islanders one full time professional media outlet is owned by another NHL team, the current beatwriter one of many long-time former Ranger beat writers  (Logan,  Herrmann, Jeansonne, Zipay, Best)  who only shows his passion when he's assigned as an extra to discuss the Rangers is never shy to remind everyone who's their selective choice for number one hockey team in New York.

The disparity between pay-walled blog entries do not lie at Msg-owned Newsday either. 

The last full time Islanders writer employed by Tribune-owned Newsday, who never covered the Rangers,  pulled no punches on Msg the year before James Dolan became Alan Hahn's boss. Now he sells the Knicks as hard as Al Trautwig.


“Some of the things they practice here are completely against what you’d expect a normal team to do,” said Mr. Hahn, a second-year reporter on the beat who said that he now misses his old job as a hockey reporter covering the provincial New York Islanders. “They come up with things all the time. There’s zero access to players. They would rather you don’t even write.”

I could post a hundred links with quotes, and have over the years. 

New York Islander Fan Central In 2007: 
In those days it was easy to do a daily digest of professional newspaper information which was done until April 2009. Today a search is filtered down to garbage unprofessional fan blogs that have no business being listed in any professional news search. 
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Ct Post:
The Ct Post has dramatically cut the Sound Tigers coverage from 2002 to 2007, through today where Michael Fornabaio went from west coast road trips in the early days, to barely being allowed to travel on many road trips in conference any longer.

He's allowed to call from home, and the team accommodates him with the coaches/player quotes on the road games. A practice unfortunately not used at the NHL level.  
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Brett Yormark: 
I hope he's smart enough to tell all self-serving bloggers, message board owners, or fan websites that the New York Islanders fans officially speak with one voice, and everyone has an equal one. No official message boards inherited from the real owners who started it, no amateur bloggers selling themselves on websites.

I suggested to Yormark he start his own site, and release all Islander business news directly first. I'm skeptical to his ability given his possible brand changes or the lack of success of his brother in Florida.
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Notice Me, Follow Me, RT Me, Get You're Information Here On Our Site/Message Board?
 
Accept No Substitute For Professional Media:
I've seen this self-serving garbage since 1999 with the pancake bunch  before Wang-Kumar purchase, there is always a bunch of people out there desperate to get something from the New York Islanders to serve their own end or hold themselves out as people who represent the fans.

Nothing could be a bigger lie.

Sadly many fan bloggers playing professional are all out there only selling themselves, and their own ambition that frankly is kind of pathetic but representative of what things have deteriorated to.

And this is with a team 30th in attendance. 

Those individuals are desperate to get noticed, they will write anything, and shamelessly self-promote themselves everywhere.  Our hockey team is never their true priority, but a lot of fans desperate to accept anything with a professional media giving them nothing can no longer tell the difference. 

My advice to is tell them to stop selling themselves, and encourage everyone never to read them or their worthless self-promoting message boards or blogs.  They desperately need you, not the other way around.

How sad is it my 30th replacement moderator since June 2006 at HF now has to shameless plug for readers on twitter all day long. Not that I wanted to notice but three times in an hour every other day? 

Next thing the amateur fans claiming they are professional at WFAN/CBS/SNY who will not spend money on accredited professionals can stop spamming themselves all day long between re tweeting professional media or speculating.
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New York Islander Fan Central Special Comment:
The next time I tell anyone to follow anything I write, re-tweet anything I post or follow this website will be the first time ever. I do not want your ad money offers, interviews or page-views.

I never left my blogger hosted website to go join a site with other writers to self-promote myself, never would sit in a blog box seat for free, and if anyone recalls my entries from joining the Isles blog box, what I would have told SI or Newday if they showed up to cover bloggers because they were too cheap to cover our hockey team in the first place. 

I want nothing from anyone (and never have) which makes it very easy to pull no punches. As I wrote recently if Charles Wang e-mailed he would be told to speak with his customers directly himself on his website, and not contact me. 

Why did I write all this? Someone has to at least try.  You look around cyberspace/twitter, and it's like one big pathetic infomercial for a bunch of self-serving phonies desperate for personal attention but could care less about the New York Islanders aside from what they can get out of them.

Long ago those kind of people had no forum, no NHL team would acknowledge their existence, there was too much professional media to laugh them away. Some NHL teams (most in Canada) would also never gain any traction there. 
 
Are some of the younger folks out there reading this really that naive? 
No source/phony report required-Tell these ambulance chasers take a hike, the New York Islander brand requires full time professional coverage in Newspapers, not you or certainly..... not me.

Reality is I no longer care to write much at all. I made it clear sticks/pucks were getting boring with names changing but peripheral topics the same even before the lockout.

But I never have pulled punches, when something needs to be written, I do it.