Baggot's elitist attitude makes me want to puke

Newspapers are dead. I know it, you know it, and Andy Baggot of the Wisconsin State Journal sure as hell knows it.

What is one way to try and generate traffic towards your company? Piss off as many people as possible. I'm sure a lot of people have seen Howard Stern's movie, "Private Parts." In the movie they start to review Howard's ratings. They find out that while the ratings are high for people who like Howard, people who hate Howard, listen to him even more. I'm convinced, that in an economy where no newspaper writer is safe, the only reason that Baggot still is employed, is because there isn't a person in the state who actually likes him. Like Claude Lemieux, or Sean Avery, Baggot embraces the role of a slime ball.

Baggot rolled out his latest piece of garbage yesterday when he threw every blogger and message board poster under the bus. Baggots problem is that he lumps everyone into complete and whole groups. He can't personally differentiate between good bloggers, bad bloggers, and so on and so forth. There are plenty of blogs and message board posters out there who not only provide good information, they provide MUCH better insight than Andy Baggot brings to the table. I don't have to tell you who they are, I'm sure you can form your own opinion.

Another thing that pisses me off about Baggot is his contradictory statements about reading blogs and message boards. Baggot starts off the article with this elitist attitude about reading blogs and message boards. Later in the article he says that sometimes he does read them to get a pulse on important issues. Which one is it Andy? Wait, I already know which one it is, and I have evidence to back it up.

I didn't feel the need to bring this up on the blog when it happened until I read his latest article. Last week former Badger captain Davis Drewiske was called up by the LA Kings. Once I found this out, I waited for confirmation from the Kings, once I received that and found a link, I posted a note on this blog about it. You can find that here. In the article I talk about how remarkable it is that there have been 9 Badgers off that Championship team to be called up to the NHL. I even left a post on the message board Buckyville here about that specific item, the 9 players. The next day, our favorite Madison writer, Andy Baggot wrote an article. What was the article about? Davis Drewiske being the 9th member off the 2006 championship team to play in the NHL. Forgive me if I feel a bit slighted, but come on. I honestly do not care that Andy wrote the article, but do you think Baggot gave a mention to who first put out that information? Absolutely not.

Now I don't feel like It's that big of a deal, but this has been going on for a long time. I don't know about you, but I respect other writers, and I give them credit EVERY time they write something that I use. I can't even begin to estimate the amount of times this blog has linked to articles that were written by Andy Baggot. But because Baggot writes for a paying employer, (no 60 doesn't give me anything!) he feels that he doesn't have to link or give credit to where he finds information.

Another instance was the Nick Pryor de-commitment. I broke the story which you can find here. Here's the kicker...I sat on the info for a few days, after I posted that article, it took less than 24 hours before Baggot had an article up about it. Now, where do you think he got that information? In his article, he claims that he had calls in to Pryor and his father. So obviously he didn't have confirmation that it was true. Did he site a source in the article as to where he found this "magical information?" No, he did not. He just acted like he was the one who brought the information to the table. Here is an excerpt from the article, "But all is not well on the recruiting front for UW because it appears Nick Pryor, a defenseman projected to join the Badgers next season, has had a change of heart." It appears? It appeared on this blog and then you stole the info and passed it off as if you had first hand knowledge.

And as soon as I write him a comment, letting him know that he stole information that was put out there, (and he knows where he got it from) he writes this article trashing message board posters, bloggers, and people who let him know that he is plagiarizing material. The sad thing is, I could go on and on about the information that he has stolen. I can't count the number of recruiting tips that I've put out there that have led an article by Baggot within the next week.

I hope Baggot realizes that he just threw his entire loyal readership under the bus. In this day in age, he should be aware that virtually every single one of his readers either blogs, posts on a message board, or at least reads one of the two. The sad thing is, Todd Milewski, who also covers the mens hockey team is a great writer. Overall, the thing that just pisses me off the most is that Baggot gets called out for plagiarism, yet still tries to turn the ship 180 and berate people because they get information out quicker than him sometimes.

Get off your high horse Andy Baggot. Newspapers are dead, and at this rate, your job isn't far behind.


Edit: Added Nick Pryor paragraph after initial article. I could keep adding instances like this all day, but I simply don't have the time.