Michael Davison, whose sports writing and columns have been a fixture in the Joplin Globe and Joplin Herald has been fired.
Reportedly, he had been at odds with the Globe's new managing editor for sports, Lance Ogden, and has been axed to make room for someone Ogden has wanted to hire.
One of the things I always liked about Davison's work is that he broke away from the typical Joplin Globe mold of watch a game, talk to the coach, then toss in a few statistics, mix it up and write the story.
During the 22 years I covered area sports, I always found coaches were good sources for information, but rarely offered good usable quotes, much less ones you could center a story around. For most of the 1980s and early 1990s, I was about the only reporter in southwest Missouri who interviewed players on a regular basis, much less wrote features about them. (Out of my 1,000 plus Sports Talk columns, I would estimate about 50 or less centered around coaches. The rest were profiles of players.)
In the mid to late 1990s, the Globe and News-Leader began using more player interviews. Unfortunately, with the advent of cable television, sports radio, and wall-to-wall sports coverage, many of the players are giving quotes that are as cliched and lame as the ones the coaches used to give. That makes the sports reporters have to work that much harder.
Davison was one of those who put in the work. I'm sure before long he will be doing so again.
13 comments:
The community should begin mourning the loss of a once-great newspaper because the Globe is quickly becoming a shadow of its former self.
Expect additional firings and defections in the newsroom and other departments.
The management's live-for-today, make-the-quarter philosophy will continue to devalue the Globe and create less distinction between it and the competition.
Not to toot our own horn too much, but Cody Thorn (Neosho Daily News sports editor) speaks with both players AND coaches, I believe, on a regular basis.
You're absolutely right, Wes. The smaller newspapers in this corner of Missouri were quicker to begin that than the Globe. Carthage Press sports writers/editors Randee Kaiser, Brian Webster, and Rick Rogers all did that when I was there. It adds a dimension to the stories that you simply cannot get otherwise.
While Davison may have been an okay reporter, he was hardly a friendly person or someone I would want to talk to.
I didn't know "friendly" was a job requirement now. Is the Globe making its personnel decisions based on "friendly"? I wonder if Woodward and Bernstein were considered to be "friendly"?
Davison was downright nasty to members of the other media. He tried to make himself look better by putting down others.
Davison definitely plays dirty, and anybody looking to pick him up should reconsider.
Davison? I'd hire him in an instant. He gives a damn about what he does and he's a fun person to be around. I've never known anyone to call him unfriendly.
Well, he is.
I worked in the same newsroom as him for more than two years, and I always found him to be professional although sometimes a goof -- and unless you've been around a sports desk in a newsroom, it's part Animal House, part M*A*S*H unit.
Typical of the Globe getting rid of what they see as dead weight -- Hull, Davison, Hacker -- and keeping those who are afraid of speaking out or speaking up.
I wonder if Carol Stark tried to get Davison to take another job elsewhere before dropping the ax. Not a surprise from them.
If he's on your team, he's OK. But if you're competing against him, watch out! He'll also make fun of you behind your back.
IGOR, I hope you are saying that the Globe saw Hacker as dead weight and not that Hacker is dead weight. The guy gave the Globe three or four stories a day. He gave them more than anyone except Gary Garton. He got wise and let them go. Not the opposite.
I should have been clearer -- Hacker was never dead weight in the newsroom; he produced more every day than the Kennedys of the world.
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