What is some people's beef with Jeff McDonald?

[zocool16]

Hi guys, I noticed that a couple of posts in this website show a dislike of the Express News' Spurs beat writer Jeff McDonald. I just wanted to ask why? Could a few of you explain it to me? Maybe give me a couple of examples even.

I personally like his stories. I find them entertaining. And no, I'm not Jeff McDonald. Lol. I am, however, a journalism graduate.

[duncan228]

I don't have any problem with him except for his lack of fact checking. I don't know where the fault lies, with the E-N or him, but it's his name on the stuff. I would think he'd make sure his facts were accurate.

It's not just him, Monroe and Harvey have had problems too.

You can find plenty of examples by reading his stuff here on SpursTalk, he gets corrected when he makes mistakes.

[DPG21920]

Not only that, but far to often things are discussed on ST then 2 weeks later an article comes out that is essentially verbatim to the posts here.

[SenorSpur]

It's probably the lack of original information from McDonald. Former Spurs beat writer Johnny Ludden's articles were usually chocked full of good, accurate, and timely Spurs information.

[Bender]

local sports writers mostly write for the masses - casual fans. The hard-core fans on boards like this are usually disappointed... since they already know the stuff... and more.

[MaNu4Tres]

=Bender;3447490]local sports writers mostly write for the masses - casual fans. The hard-core fans on boards like this are usually disappointed... since they already know the stuff... and more.

I agree with you to a certain extent, but at least the guy can do is get his facts right.

[Solid D]

Jeff's first year and a half, he didn't present much insight for a beat writer. Part of that had to do with his lack of relationship with the Spurs management and players. What Jeff needed was to put some effort in digging for information and some "jet and bus time" with the team to build his relationships. His articles started improving after a long road trip this season. Jeff is now starting to become a true beat writer for his team. He still needs a bit more study and time understanding the intricacies of the collective bargaining agreement but he's much better than he was last season. This summer will be his next test to get him closer to his predecessor, Mr. Ludden.

He'll have to work by going to the practice facility, doing lunch, going to some of the pre-draft camps and summer league games....rather than trying to get his info on-line.

[Slomo]

http://www.cikava.com/gallery/albums/Emoticons/Miss_ludden.jpg

[exstatic]

http://www.cikava.com/gallery/albums/Emoticons/Miss_ludden.jpg

+1 :lol

[Galileo]

Jeff does a great job!

[tmtcsc]

I agree with what has been said thus far. Some of the venom that he gets is a little harsh and gets too personal imo. He happened to replace an EXCELLENT beat writer in Johnny Ludden and that is probably Problem # 1.

I also find that he offers very little inside information. His pieces are not meant to be opinion articles (as far as I know) so that leaves him with reporting the news and digging deeper to find "closed door" information. He just doesn't have the sources and had to start from scratch.

I think he's had 2 full season at this now and he still hasn't found very many good sources.

It's just my opinion. Oh, and yeah, some of his articles seem to be old rehashed stuff from Spurstalk (without giving proper credit---not surprisingly) and others are just flat out wrong.

[weebo]

With so much information floating around the internet from varying resources, guys like Jeff Mac are a dying breed. I really don't have a problem with him whatsoever although most of his info is usually done after the fact.

[CubanMustGo]

When 80% of posters at ST have a better grasp of the subject matter, there's a problem. There are so many JMac articles with factual errors it's not even funny.

[Buddy Holly]

http://evilbeetgossip.film.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/cleveland.jpg
He's terrible.

[EricB]

Jeff's first year and a half, he didn't present much insight for a beat writer. Part of that had to do with his lack of relationship with the Spurs management and players. What Jeff needed was to put some effort in digging for information and some "jet and bus time" with the team to build his relationships. His articles started improving after a long road trip this season. Jeff is now starting to become a true beat writer for his team. He still needs a bit more study and time understanding the intricacies of the collective bargaining agreement but he's much better than he was last season. This summer will be his next test to get him closer to his predecessor, Mr. Ludden.

He'll have to work by going to the practice facility, doing lunch, going to some of the pre-draft camps and summer league games....rather than trying to get his info on-line.


Ludden had been around for HOW long?

I mean forever.

This guy just got here.

But of course people expect this guy to have inside information from day 1.


Everyone is a GD journalist and think they are wayyy smarter.

[whottt]

I'd say 30-40% of it is McDonald legimately sucking and the other 60-70% of it are people following timvp's lead.

[MannyIsGod]

Ludden had been around for HOW long?

I mean forever.

This guy just got here.

But of course people expect this guy to have inside information from day 1.


Everyone is a GD journalist and think they are wayyy smarter.

Its hard to check whether or not what he writes is correct.

I am way smarter than him. He sucks.

[IronMexican]

Hi guys, I noticed that a couple of posts in this website show a dislike of the Express News' Spurs beat writer Jeff McDonald. I just wanted to ask why? Could a few of you explain it to me? Maybe give me a couple of examples even.

I personally like his stories. I find them entertaining. And no, I'm not Jeff McDonald. Lol. I am, however, a journalism graduate.

El Chapulin Colorado

[50Bestspurever]

I don’t think the problem is with Mcdonald, I think it is the idiot poster who has never taken one journalism class but thinks cause his million of takes are posted on the internet that he or she is better than said journalist. I never understood the hate for some of these columnists. Harvey in particular.

[BG_Spurs_Fan]

I don’t think the problem is with Mcdonald, I think it is the idiot poster who has never taken one journalism class but thinks cause his million of takes are posted on the internet that he or she is better than said journalist. I never understood the hate for some of these columnists. Harvey in particular.

Your point would have been credible if people were objecting McDonald's style and grammar, which IMO compared to others like Ludden, are plain amateurish, however, the beef is mainly with the factual mistakes he makes so often, that I, being just a programmer and not a journalist, consider at least 50 people on this board to be more credible, than a supposed beat-writer.

[raspsa]

I sense that he doesn't have that much face time with the players and team officials.. its like he's writing from a distance and not someone who is intimately familiar with his subject.

[stéphane]

Mc Donald after Ludden is like the taste of some diet coke after a fine Chateaux Margot....

[Stump]

I do think that part of the issue is that McDonald is replacing a very solid journalist in Ludden. Even so, every time I read Jeff's articles, I can't help but feel that this guy is just doing the bare minimum. His work is riddled with mistakes, offers no insight, and is often a rehash of Spurstalk discussions.

Plus, it's the internet. What else do we have to do besides overanalyze and whine?

[urunobili]

Even for us not natives we realize he just plain sucks...:wakeup

[Dex]

Ludden had been around for HOW long?

I mean forever.

This guy just got here.

But of course people expect this guy to have inside information from day 1.


Everyone is a GD journalist and think they are wayyy smarter.

Stylistic preferences aside, there is no excuse for a reporter consistently putting out bad information. When you're a reporter providing incorrect facts, you're not doing your job right. All the SA Beats are guilty of it, but McDonald catches more flack because he's new and doesn't provide much substance outside of it.

I don't expect him to have all the inside information. I just expect him to check his work, and could really not care less about hearing about what he thinks about the hotel they stayed in, or what he had for breakfast.

[Obstructed_View]

Add to the complete lack of new, or sometimes even accurate, information the fact that he's a terrible writer and you pretty much have your answer. People that are passionate enough about the Spurs that they spend their spare time writing about the team for free are going to be resentful of a newspaper employee who's being paid to just go through the motions.

[Kori Ellis]

If it was just a matter of writing style or not having enough insider information, then that would be one thing. But most of the "beef" with McDonald stems from that he just doesn't fact check. Case in point, he said in an article in the last few days that the Spurs can't talk to the Greek at all. (Which is wrong and he later went back and edited the article). Then today, he said Manu makes over $16M this year.

These are simple things that if you don't know, you shouldn't just make them up. Instead, you should look them up. I don't expect Jeff to know everything about the Spurs that Ludden does, but he should take time to check that the things he isn't sure about.

[samikeyp]

If it was just a matter of writing style or not having enough insider information, then that would be one thing. But most of the "beef" with McDonald stems from that he just doesn't fact check. Case in point, he said in an article in the last few days that the Spurs can't talk to the Greek at all. (Which is wrong and he later went back and edited the article). Then today, he said Manu makes over $16M this year.

These are simple things that if you don't know, you shouldn't just make them up. Instead, you should look them up. I don't expect Jeff to know everything about the Spurs that Ludden does, but he should take time to check that the things he isn't sure about.


And if he's not sure and can't find out...don't write it.

[MannyIsGod]

There's no excuse for some of the bullshit he writes that is just wrong. How does one take so little pride in their profession? And to top it off to have idiots in here defending that. Guess what, I've written for 2 papers before and I didn't put out incorrect shit like that even though my papers were both much smaller than the fucking Express News. Its pathetic and to have some of you defending him just shows how little respect for actual journalism you have.

It may not be easy to get an inside scoop but it certainly is easy to make sure what you write is factually correct.

[DPG21920]

There's no excuse for some of the bullshit he writes that is just wrong. How does one take so little pride in their profession? And to top it off to have idiots in here defending that. Guess what, I've written for 2 papers before and I didn't put out incorrect shit like that even though my papers were both much smaller than the fucking Express News. Its pathetic and to have some of you defending him just shows how little respect for actual journalism you have.

It may not be easy to get an inside scoop but it certainly is easy to make sure what you write is factually correct.

This is the age of the "Instant Message", "Blog" and "Text". Many people do not view journalism, at least journalism in this regard, as serious anymore with regards to in depth fact checking and structure.

I do not think there are many people defending him; in fact many on here bash him over and over.

I do not see why you are whining about it. He gets slaughtered on ST repeatedly.

[ElNono]

What a Jeff McDonald article should REALLY read like:

McDonald: Spurs look to the future
by Jeff McDonald

According to timvp, the Spurs are saving cap space to make a big move in 2010. That doesn't mean that nothing will happen this offseason. Bruno indicated that the Spurs should be able to begin contract negotiations with Bourousis at any time, considering he's not a NBA free agent.
We also read on Manu Ginobili's facebook page that he's packing a lot of stuff and getting ready to travel to Argentina to rest some more and begin his training for the upcoming season. We are sure that among the items is a real-life sized ducks voodoo doll. He is set to make $10 million next season, which should afford him such toys.
Lastly, the ever-pervasive Duncan228 tells us that Tim Duncan is enjoying a great vacation time with his ever growing family.

Thanks to Kori and the gang at Spurstalk.com for keeping me up to date!

[Dex]

:lmao

The worst part is...it's not a matter of if Jeff will run across this post, but rather when.

[MannyIsGod]

This is the age of the "Instant Message", "Blog" and "Text". Many people do not view journalism, at least journalism in this regard, as serious anymore with regards to in depth fact checking and structure.

I do not think there are many people defending him; in fact many on here bash him over and over.

I do not see why you are whining about it. He gets slaughtered on ST repeatedly.

There are several posts defending him in this thread, thats why I'm "whining" about it. I don't see why you are classifying my 2nd post in a thread on this very subject as "whining".

Should I send my posts to you first for approval?

[DPG21920]

I think people take the bashing over board, but there is definite room for improvement. Only certain journalism snobs get all huffy and puffy about it, because it is their line of work. They are like artists who think "everything sucks".

It is not that big of a deal and this is not world changing news or journalism. It is sports. It is entertainment. Should he take more pride in his job? Sure. Is that the way things work? No.

I remember people talking crap to me in the waiters/service thread when I said they should be prideful of their jobs and not spit in peoples food when a customer is rude...they said "that is so stupid, they are waiters. You should not be rude to them, and if you are expect to get your food spit in"...

How come Jeff should have pride in his job as a journalist, but not waiters or anyone else? It is just the way things work. Not everyone is going to be the best in their field.

[DPG21920]

There's no excuse for some of the bullshit he writes that is just wrong. How does one take so little pride in their profession? And to top it off to have idiots in here defending that. Guess what, I've written for 2 papers before and I didn't put out incorrect shit like that even though my papers were both much smaller than the fucking Express News. Its pathetic and to have some of you defending him just shows how little respect for actual journalism you have.

It may not be easy to get an inside scoop but it certainly is easy to make sure what you write is factually correct.


There are several posts defending him in this thread, thats why I'm "whining" about it. I don't see why you are classifying my 2nd post in a thread on this very subject as "whining".

Should I send my posts to you first for approval?

Overall, at ST would you say Jeff is revered or hated? Getting all pissed and calling people idiots because they defend Jeff from some over board criticisms seems like whining. Especially when he gets bashed on here over and over again.

Not the point though. It is just not that big of a deal and he should get better, if not, I am sure they will hire someone else if enough people care to complain.

[MannyIsGod]

Overall, at ST would you say Jeff is revered or hated? Getting all pissed and calling people idiots because they defend Jeff from some over board criticisms seems like whining. Especially when he gets bashed on here over and over again.

Not the point though. It is just not that big of a deal and he should get better, if not, I am sure they will hire someone else if enough people care to complain.

Its not that big of a deal compared to what? On a Spur message board I'd say its a pretty big deal when the main media outlet has a buffoon on board who can't be bothered with simple facts. Sure, in the grand scheme of things no one is going to ask congress for a special investigation into this but this is a Spurs message board where the Spurs are the center of the message board universe. So it is a big deal in the context of Spurstalk.

Its not about getting better at all. You don't get better from blatant disregard from the facts as a journalist. This guy simply puts no effort into his job.

Its the professional equivalent of expecting a doctor who has killed 3 patients in surgery to get better at his job. When you violate the core principles of your profession on such a fundamental level there is no getting better.

As much as those articles have information that is obviously gathered from here, he should know how poorly his fact checking is by now and if he had any interest in fixing the problem he should have done so by now.

I'm fairly certain every poster associated with the media on this forum would agree with my post. Who better to judge than one's peers?

[DPG21920]

Its not that big of a deal compared to what? On a Spur message board I'd say its a pretty big deal when the main media outlet has a buffoon on board who can't be bothered with simple facts. Sure, in the grand scheme of things no one is going to ask congress for a special investigation into this but this is a Spurs message board where the Spurs are the center of the message board universe. So it is a big deal in the context of Spurstalk.

Its not about getting better at all. You don't get better from blatant disregard from the facts as a journalist. This guy simply puts no effort into his job.

Its the professional equivalent of expecting a doctor who has killed 3 patients in surgery to get better at his job. When you violate the core principles of your profession on such a fundamental level there is no getting better.

As much as those articles have information that is obviously gathered from here, he should know how poorly his fact checking is by now and if he had any interest in fixing the problem he should have done so by now.

I'm fairly certain every poster associated with the media on this forum would agree with my post. Who better to judge than one's peers?

I am not saying that peers are not a good source of judgment, but some can go overboard. He gets bashed on ST all the time, but to act like a doctor saving lives is anywhere in the same ball park as a beat writer for a sports team, is exactly what I was referring to when I said it is not a big deal.

There are lots of lazy people at their jobs. It is frustrating, but you do not need to call people idiots for defending the guy from unnecessary criticisms (when they go too far), and there is no need to get upset especially when many people already bash the guy.

It does not take a journalism major to see that his fact checking and originality is lacking.

[MannyIsGod]

Professional equivalent dude. I knew the moment I typed that I was going to get the "they're not the same" bullshit. Its about how badly he's violated the fundamentals of his profession, not about people dying. I figured you'd at least understand that point.

In any event, whats going overboard? Are people calling for him to be water boarded? Are they showing up at his office in an angry mob? Are they firebombing his house? Or are they just saying he's a horrible beat writer and a sorry excuse for a journalist?

And yeah, in the very least there are two posts above that definitely deserve the idiot tag for the way they defended McDonald.

[ElNono]

I agree with Manny on this one... although I believe it's not necessarily Jeff we should be bitching about, but his boss, that should have realized by now that this guys has no interest whatsoever in journalism, and instead gets by on it as a hobby.

[urunobili]

I stopped reading E-N because of him... :wakeup

[DPG21920]

Professional equivalent dude. I knew the moment I typed that I was going to get the "they're not the same" bullshit. Its about how badly he's violated the fundamentals of his profession, not about people dying. I figured you'd at least understand that point.

In any event, whats going overboard? Are people calling for him to be water boarded? Are they showing up at his office in an angry mob? Are they firebombing his house? Or are they just saying he's a horrible beat writer and a sorry excuse for a journalist?

And yeah, in the very least there are two posts above that definitely deserve the idiot tag for the way they defended McDonald.

I did get what you were saying obviously, but it puts things in context of how big of a deal you think it is. I figured you would at least understand that point.

Why did you not use a waiter analogy instead of a doctor? If a waiter keeps putting in the wrong order or messing up orders without checking to make sure he/she has it right?

You keep going to extremes. I did not say people are "bombing his house", but going over board could be getting called a "f*cking idiot, d-bag, sack of sh*t" 100 times.

He gets ripped pretty hard and as a journalism major, why don't you offer some tips on how to improve instead of bashing him like so many others? You know he reads this, so why not try and better the situation?

I am all for calling someone and idiot when it needs to be said every once and a while, but he gets it pretty bad.

[DPG21920]

I was the second to post a criticism in this thread :lol

But I take it for what it is worth.

[timvp]

I'd say 30-40% of it is McDonald legimately sucking and the other 60-70% of it are people following timvp's lead.

:rolleyes

I was a McDonald defender for his first couple months. And I've never really had a problem with the style of his writing. But when he averages more than one error per article he writes, I eventually can't keep defending him.

Mike Monroe I think is even worse. He makes more errors and more blatant errors. Plus McDonald is the better writer. I'm guessing you got Monroe and McDonald mixed up in your comment above, which isn't surprising considering how mixed up your Spurs takes have been as of late . . .

But anyways, I cut them both some slack because they don't have easy jobs. They don't make that much money, have to do a lot of traveling and have tight deadlines. It sounds like a sweet job from the outside but I've seen beat writers in action and they almost all hate what they do. I'm not sure if that's the case for McDonald and Monroe, but chances are it is. I wouldn't want either of their jobs for ten times as much money as they make.

All the E-N needs to do is hire (or re-hire) an editor who will fact check their articles and about 90% of the complaints would disappear. Posters on this forum get flamed for mistakes. I wouldn't expect paid writers to be exempt from that.

[Solid D]

If it was just a matter of writing style or not having enough insider information, then that would be one thing. But most of the "beef" with McDonald stems from that he just doesn't fact check. Case in point, he said in an article in the last few days that the Spurs can't talk to the Greek at all. (Which is wrong and he later went back and edited the article). Then today, he said Manu makes over $16M this year.

These are simple things that if you don't know, you shouldn't just make them up. Instead, you should look them up. I don't expect Jeff to know everything about the Spurs that Ludden does, but he should take time to check that the things he isn't sure about.

Why let Jeff slide on the other stuff? Actually, the Express-News took their time in coming up with Jeff as their post-Ludden solution. Then they went the rookie NBA beat writer route...probably for financial reasons. They share in the blame for our angst.

We can only hope McDonald will continue to work on his craft and build better relationships with the Spurs before the paper has to close its doors.

[timvp]

We can only hope McDonald will continue to work on his craft and build better relationships with the Spurs before the paper has to close its doors.:lol Harsh ... but true.







Speaking of Ludden, he was awesome right from the beginning. His first year was the '99 championship year and he was great. For his first three or four years, he came up with very good content during the summer months. Even before he became an insider, he made up for lack of insight with quality and quantity.

As good as Ludden became, he eventually became a very lazy writer during the summer. In his last few years with the Spurs he would only write articles in the summer when he had to. His boredom with his job was pretty evident in his last year or too.

Hopefully McDonald isn't suffering from a lack of passion and is still just finding his way. If he's already bored or hating his job, then hope is already lost.