redskins.com and extreme skins?

RedskinsFreak · Post by **RedskinsFreak** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 4:46 pm

I apologize. I was the one who said ES "sold out" without knowing everything. I see now that's not the case. It's yet another unfortumate case of the Redskins giving a loyal segment of its fans reason to doubt whether that loyalty is still a two-lane street.

I still have my reservations as to whether any representative of any fan site should be credentialed in any way. This will sound ice-cold to most of THN, but they [amended thought here ...] aren't legitimate news organizations.

Irn-Bru · Post by **Irn-Bru** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 4:48 pm

but they ain't reporters

. . .and reporters have just as much of an agenda as the fan-site people do. (read: Lenny P).

No one is going to be objective when they report, there is no such thing (other than stating raw stats without any adjectives). I don't mind getting news from a fan site or reporters, since you have to filter what you get either way.

1niksder · Post by **1niksder** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 4:55 pm

ES is well known for a quick link to the Bang Cartoons - Playmakers didn't make it on ESPN and Bang won't be on redskin.com.

If you lurk over there long enough you will run into a thread called Babe of the .... I don't see that being around too much longer.

RedskinsFreak · Post by **RedskinsFreak** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 4:57 pm

FanfromAnnapolis wrote:
but they ain't reporters

. . .and reporters have just as much of an agenda as the fan-site people do. (read: Lenny P).

No one is going to be objective when they report, there is no such thing (other than stating raw stats without any adjectives). I don't mind getting news from a fan site or reporters, since you have to filter what you get either way.

Point taken and, as you might see, I amended the end of my previous posts. I get more from the camp reports here than I do being able to speak to Ryan and David on a daily basis -- and they get to see the CLOSED practices as well.

You have to draw the lime SOMEwhere.

BossHog · Post by **BossHog** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 4:59 pm

RedskinsFreak wrote: This will sound ice-cold to most of THN, but they ain't reporters.

Really? Based on what?

The fact that we often find positive things to write about rather than looking for dirt?

A reporter by definition is just someone that reports... which is what we do... and over 500 times.

What we aren't is sensationalist reporters.

DEHog · Post by **DEHog** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 4:59 pm

First off great post RIC

OM, please remember you came here and answered a post made here by a mod from another site. Of course we welcome all to express their opinions here. I think that maybe there’s a feeling that those of us from other sites are not happy or are somewhat envious of ES new deal with the Redskins. Of course I can’t speak for everyone, but from what I see on our boards, everyone seems happy for you. If there’s any hesitation or concern about the deal, it’s that (it appears) the Redskins have “filled a square” at the expense of your website you at ES have worked so hard to create. If there’s any frustration from the sites, it's that the Redskins will continue to shut us out. You at ES surely understand that. Also I hope you’ll continue to be an advocate of fan sites and help to forge relationships with us….it a win/win for all of us.

I’ve read many comments here and at ES that say any of the sites would have jumped at this opportunity. I would say to them please don’t speak for us, we love were we are and what we do and enjoy the freedom of doing it without censorship. You have to be worried about the freedom you’re going to be able to express, imagine the first thread you have to remove, the minute you do that you lose all credibility with the fans. Are you concerned about that?? I hope that ES was properly compensated for the value of your product and that you’ll be given the freedom to be the voice of the fans. Conversely, if you’re not given that opportunity we here at THN see it as an opportunity to offer Redskins fans a alternative place to voice their opinions. Either way I look forward to the future and seeing how it all plays out. Best of Luck and Congrats again!

RedskinsFreak · Post by **RedskinsFreak** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 5:12 pm

BossHog wrote:Really? Based on what?

The fact that we often find positive things to write about rather than looking for dirt?

NOT IN THE LEAST. I HATE "reporters" with agendas. I won't lie, either. I'm very anti-Snyder but am doing my damndest to keep that seperate from being a Redskins fan.

(Having the Nats this year helped considerably since they allowed me to all but ignore the B&G until this week)

A reporter by definition is just someone that reports... which is what we do... and over 500 times.

What we aren't is sensationalist reporters.

And that's why I come here -- after my 7-month sabattical. There's too much sensationalism in all media as it is. I don't like it any more than you do.

TAFKAS · Post by **TAFKAS** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 6:50 pm

Om wrote:Hesitant as I am to stir this up even MORE ... the notion that we went "behind anyone's back" in this thing is just preposterous. The Washington Redskins approached US about the possibility of incorportating ES into redskins.com when they decided they were going to institute a MB. Those preliminary exploratory discussions, and then all the subsequent negotiations that ultimately resulted in an agreement were NOT for public consumption ... and it frankly strains credulity to think anyone would believe they were.

It is also giving us WAY too much credit to think that we had any pull or say in who did or did not get media access to camps. Seriously ... we're running their message board. We are NOT making executive decisions on how and with whom they do business.

The Redskins are building a site that includes, among other things, a message board. Through long, painstaking negotiation, they reached an arrangement with us to create one. Now it's up to each Redskin fan as an individual to decide if the product we come up with as a result is worthy of their time. Is it too much to ask that their perceptions not be colored and/or poisoned by the leaders of other forums passing along mis- and disinformation?

I won't "argue" or debate the point further here on thehogs.net dime, but I did want to at least suggest that there is in fact a yin to this yang.

Thanks for the opportunity to try ...

You're right Om. And as I said on ExtremeSkins I was frustrated initially because I feel very protective of TheWarpath.net. All you fellow site moderators know how it is, I'm sure.

But after I had a chance to really sit back and think about it I realized I was getting all worked up over selfish reasons. And for that I apologize

HTTR

!

Redskin in Canada · Post by **Redskin in Canada** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 6:53 pm

DEHog wrote:If there’s any frustration from the sites, it that the Redskins will continue to shut us out. You at ES surely understand that. Also I hope you’ll continue to be an advocate of fan sites and help to forge relationship with us….it a win/win for all of us.

This is what many of us are trying to say to ES in as many words.

RiC

Redskin in Canada · Post by **Redskin in Canada** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 6:55 pm

TAFKAS wrote:But after I had a chance to really sit back and think about it I realized I was getting all worked up over selfish reasons. And for that I apologize

It takes a real man and a real Redskin fan to do that. You are a good man in my book. Time to leave this behind and win the next Superbowl!

HailSkins94 · Post by **HailSkins94** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 7:22 pm

Punu wrote: I love the site, I do.... it's great... were all a SKINS family... but theHOGS.net is a site with pure class and design.
In my humble Opinion I feel this site should be number one, most recognized and marketed tothe top.

No doubt, we all know which site is the best.

cvillehog · Post by **cvillehog** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 7:28 pm

Hey, guess what...
Fooooootttbbaaaaallllll!

I spent all day trying to teach Hail to the Redskins to my two-year-olds.

BringThePain! · Post by **BringThePain!** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 7:38 pm

cvillehog wrote:Hey, guess what...
Fooooootttbbaaaaallllll!

I spent all day trying to teach Hail to the Redskins to my two-year-olds.

HOORAY FOOTBALL!!! Teaching our soccer friends a real sport for over 100 years...

mattyk72 · Post by **mattyk72** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 1:34 pm

My final take is this. I have no beef with ES or any other fan sites, it's not about that. My beef is with the Redskins, period.

BossHog · Post by **BossHog** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 2:01 pm

cvillehog wrote:Hey, guess what...
Fooooootttbbaaaaallllll!

I spent all day trying to teach Hail to the Redskins to my two-year-olds.

I hope you used the handy-dandy Flash movie that's in both the history section and fun zone.

cvillehog · Post by **cvillehog** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 11:41 pm

BossHog wrote:
cvillehog wrote:Hey, guess what...
Fooooootttbbaaaaallllll!

I spent all day trying to teach Hail to the Redskins to my two-year-olds.

I hope you used the handy-dandy Flash movie that's in both the history section and fun zone.

That's a good idea, because when I was singing it to them, Vivian put her hand over my mouth. :shock:

Jake · Post by **Jake** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 8:42 am

The Anti-Media Media
by Dave McKenna

A newly acquired Internet board is the Skins’ latest party organ.

Dan Snyder’s free-agent acquisitions in his early years seemed to show a fondness for an “If you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em” strategy with regard to personnel. That tack didn’t work out real well: Deion, Jeff George, the Jets’ offense, etc. Snyder hasn’t abandoned the concept, however. He’s just taken it off the field. He’s becoming the king of all media.

One of the most novel steps came in August, when the Redskins announced they had acquired ExtremeSkins.com. That was sort of the Neon Deion of fan Web sites, the most popular and brashest such outlet in the burgundy-and-gold universe. ExtremeSkins.com is the first existing fan site ever acquired by an NFL team.

Unique or not, the move was absolutely consistent with Snyder’s behavior since acquiring the Skins. The team’s media manipulation started shortly after Snyder bought the team. He acquired established publications, including the Redskins Journal, a Manassas-based independent fanzine that predated the Internet.

He began producing a series of television shows, most of which involved putting area TV and radio sportscasters, folks who are part of station’s news departments and considered journalists, on the payroll of the team they cover most. (Last month, the team debuted the Snyder-produced Redskins Late Night on WUSA-TV, leaving WJLA-TV as the only major-network-affiliated station in this market not broadcasting the team’s infomercials.)

But whereas most of Snyder’s encroachments into traditional media have been effected with next to no fanfare, some folks are taking notice of the ExtremeSkins.com takeover. Journalists not on the payroll, mainly. The Skins site has become another weapon the team can use against anybody who publicly questions management’s moves and is seen as much as an anti-media forum as a pro-Skins destination.

In an ExtremeSkins.com chat shortly after his acquisition, Snyder slammed the media for, among other things, questioning the big-screen TV at FedEx Field and for using anonymous sources in newspaper stories about his squad. (“I would encourage the local media to follow the example of the national outlets like USA Today which refuses to use unidentified sources,” Snyder posted. “Most obviously have personal agendas.”) When asked what his biggest challenge has been since taking over the team, Snyder answered, “The inaccuracies in the media. The portrayal of people and the use of the coaches, the players and the owners to sell their newspapers.”

During his own chat on ExtremeSkins.com, Karl Swanson, the team’s senior vice president and top Snyder spokesperson, directed all visitors to the “Nunyo Files,” which was a running compendium on the site of alleged reporting mistakes by Nunyo Demasio, the Washington Post reporter who recently left the Skins beat for Sports Illustrated.

A bizarre but widely believed legend among media types at Redskins Park holds that Swanson, for some time, has been railing about the coverage of the team in various postings to ExtremeSkins.com and other Web sites under the handle “andyman.” This character has attained hero status among surfers of ExtremeSkins.com for providing dead-on information about impending transactions, trashing the media all the while. When somebody on the ExtremeSkins.com praised the work of Bram Weinstein, the Redskins beat reporter for sports station WTEM-AM, for example, andyman came through with “He has no idea what’s going on at Redskins Park and neither do the other reporters.”

A recent posting on a sports-media Web site, SportsJournalists.com, seemed to out Swanson as a chat-room lurker; it claimed that the Redskins official had screwed up by registering at that site while the board was hot from a flame-filled thread about Demasio’s move to Sports Illustrated. If such a high-ranking team official, let alone one in charge of dealing with the media, were discovered to be a pseudonymous basher, that could stain the entire organization. Swanson admits that he indeed registered at SportsJournalists.com, but he says he only was trying to reach the moderator and denied having ever posted there or anywhere else as andyman.

“I know of andyman, but I do not know who that is. I am not andyman,” says Swanson.

Swanson says he thinks the real andyman is “somebody who works at a copy desk” of a newspaper (which wouldn’t really explain the character’s apparent anti-media bias).

Some media-bashers aren’t so loath to be outed. The poster who goes by Art is the Wilt Chamberlain of ExtremeSkins.com—he now claims more than 21,000 posts to the Skins site alone. Art has positioned himself as more of a media attack dog than a watchdog; he goes after any journo who utters a negative word about Snyder’s operation with the fervor of a scorned Scientologist. Art is the guy responsible for the Nunyo Files, and he says he’d be doing it even if the Redskins hadn’t acquired the site.

“My name is Art Mills, and everybody there knows that ‘Art’ is Art Mills,” he says. “I’ve been attacking bad journalism for years, before the Redskins ever knew my name, and I’ll be attacking bad journalism for years to come.”

Demasio says he gave his enemies fuel by erroneously reporting that the Redskins were going to cut Ryan Clark before the 2004 season, but he finds the continued attacks against him on ExtremeSkins.com rather amusing.

“As a journalist, every mistake hits like a dagger,” Demasio says. “So I wish I never gave one bit of ammunition. But I still can’t figure out how [the Nunyo Files were] supposed to smear me, especially after the team bought the site. If anything, it made me realize that the Washington Post got under their skins, no pun intended.”

Eric Leichter, a North Dakota urologist and one of the board’s previous owners, declines to discuss the financial terms of the Redskins’ takeover of his board. But Leichter says he supports the site’s tone just as much now as he did before it fell under Snyder’s management umbrella. In fact, he joined Mills and andyman in crashing Demasio’s going-away party at SportsJournalists.com. Posting on the site as “SkinBlade”—he uses “Blade” while bashing at ExtremeSkins.com—Leichter prodded anybody saying nice things about Demasio to “stop swinging from Nunyo’s sack.”

The Skins have rewarded Mills, who lives in Minnesota, for his anti-media venom in a very weird way. Along with getting paid for his contributions to the Redskins Web site, since Snyder’s takeover of the site, Mills now gets to watch the team’s games from—you guessed it—the press box, and all on the team’s dime. He recounts his experiences on the site, which leads to such journalism as the following, from the press box of Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas, posted just after the Skins completed their Monday Night Miracle: “Monday, Sept. 19, Brunell to MOSS TD—Now we’re obnoxious. Mediamembers looking at us. Screw them. YES BABY!!!!!!!! We sprint down to sidelines now.”

Allowing representatives from the fan site, let alone brash media-bashers, to sit alongside working media in the press box troubles Dave Elfin, the longtime Washington Times reporter who now serves as president of the Pro Football Writers Association.

“I wish they were not there,” says Elfin. “They have cheered in the press box, which is against every tenet of the press box. There are already disputes over fan Web sites [being given press credentials] in other markets. But in those other cases, the sites aren’t owned by the team. Here, the site is owned by the team, so we really have no say who gets in the press box. It’s up to the team, and they choose to let in fans disguised as journalists. It’s a distressing trend.”

Mills, who says he used to be a working newspaperman before going into medical-equipment sales, is the opposite of apologetic when he hears that some journalists question the validity of a paid fan reporting on games.

“We give fans an eyes-wide-open, aw-shucks view that they can’t get anywhere else,” he says. “Our presence is every bit as appropriate as the traditional media.” CP

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/chea ... p1021.html

Irn-Bru · Post by **Irn-Bru** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 9:04 am

Say what you want about extremeskins, but knowing that they're on the media like that is a good thing, in my opinion.

Although, Dan Snyder's quote in that chat was pretty funny:

When asked what his biggest challenge has been since taking over the team, Snyder answered, “The inaccuracies in the media. The portrayal of people and the use of the coaches, the players and the owners to sell their newspapers.”

He sounds like a hurt puppy dog.

ROTFALMAO

skins81 · Post by **skins81** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 9:54 am

I know of this andyman. I am not andyman.

gibbsfan · Post by **gibbsfan** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 11:22 am

portis26 wrote:That site doesn't even compare to thehogs.net

nothing i mean nothing compares to this site period.
this one stands alone.

Redskins Rule · Post by **Redskins Rule** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 12:14 pm

Sounds like Danny Boy is getting his rightful reach around with the media! I love it! I hope they can't walk after he's done with them.

Fios · Post by **Fios** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 12:21 pm

My problem with the Redskins adopting an official fan site is that it serves, intentionally or not, to lessen the importance of other fan sites. I know little to nothing about extremeskins nor am I much interested in exploring their site but I can state, unequivocally and from a position of admitted ignorance, that it is at the very best, only equal to this site.
I'm also not a fan of the idea of putting super fans in the press box as this will only serve to further debase the already negative, collective view of Redskins fans.
My 2 cents

DieselFan · Post by **DieselFan** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 12:49 pm

Is it too late to change my Username to Andyman?

Fios · Post by **Fios** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 2:01 pm

Fios wrote:I know little to nothing about extremeskins nor am I much interested in exploring their site but I can state, unequivocally and from a position of admitted ignorance, that it is at the very best, only equal to this site.

That was a pathetic attempt at an endorsement: this site rocks, it is run and moderated by a group of passionate, bright and articulate volunteers who balance being a fan with being pragmatic and realistic. I don't think they get thanked enough so, from the bottom of my bleeding liberal heart:
Thank you one and all

REDEEMEDSKIN · Post by **REDEEMEDSKIN** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 3:14 pm

Fios wrote:
Fios wrote:I know little to nothing about extremeskins nor am I much interested in exploring their site but I can state, unequivocally and from a position of admitted ignorance, that it is at the very best, only equal to this site.

That was a pathetic attempt at an endorsement: this site rocks, it is run and moderated by a group of passionate, bright and articulate volunteers who balance being a fan with being pragmatic and realistic. I don't think they get thanked enough so, from the bottom of my bleeding liberal heart:
Thank you one and all

:hmm: Having a problem juggling both personalities there, Fios???

Anyway, I agree with both (or all five) of you, this site is PRIMO!!!