The CardBoard
Spring questions - Printable Version

+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: C-House! (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-5.html)
+--- Thread: Spring questions (/thread-8913.html)

Pages: 1 2

Spring questions - BostonCard - 03-03-2015

By David Lombardi

http://espn.go.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id/84864/spring-questions-stanford-cardinal

Aside from the unnecessary (though not improper) use of "literally", his writing is getting better.  There is not a whole lot of news in there for people who follow the program closely, but still I learned a nugget or two.

Tijuan Thomas was our nickel (it would have been nice to know who was starting opposite Alexander in our base defense, as Harris is hurt), and McCaffrey is stronger.

Re: Spring questions - terry - 03-03-2015

I'll be surprised if Taijuan Thomas is our starting nickel back in September.

Re: Spring questions - CowboyIndian - 03-03-2015

(03-03-2015, 06:02 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:Tijuan Thomas was our nickel

Here he is with the rest of the young DBs:
[Image: card00085_fr.jpg]

Re: Spring questions - CompSci87 - 03-03-2015

(03-03-2015, 06:02 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:http://espn.go.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id/84864/spring-questions-stanford-cardinal

Aside from the unnecessary (though not improper) use of "literally", his writing is getting better.

As long as we're nitpicking, in the first sentence "glances of" should read "glances at".

Re: Spring questions - Rally - 03-03-2015

(03-03-2015, 06:02 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:By David Lombardi

http://espn.go.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id/84864/spring-questions-stanford-cardinal

Aside from the unnecessary (though not improper) use of "literally", his writing is getting better.  There is not a whole lot of news in there for people who follow the program closely, but still I learned a nugget or two.

Tijuan Thomas was our nickel (it would have been nice to know who was starting opposite Alexander in our base defense, as Harris is hurt), and McCaffrey is stronger.

Why all the animosity towards Lombardi?  He's a Stanford letterman making his way, enjoying life as a young man in San Francisco, and has landed a job with ESPN.  Moving up in his profession.  Is this another arcane Cardboard thing where we hate anyone who worked in/for an unapproved place?  I don't get it.

Re: Spring questions - BostonCard - 03-03-2015

I've been one of Lombardi's critics, not because of any animus, but precisely because he is a Stanford guy making his way.  I want him to improve so that he succeeds, and, to his credit, I think he's gotten a little bit better since joining ESPN.

My main criticisms of Lombardi have been:

His writing is overly pretentious, and tough to read.  It reads like a freshman creative writing assignment where he often uses a whole lot of words designed to sound impressive but which don't say much.  He needs to learn how to write more simply and directly. As I said, he is improving in this regard.

He is unduly opinionated and too narrow-minded in his views.  The best example of this was last year, when he was trying to create a QB controversy for the new year that didn't exist.  He was disguising his opinion (that he thought Hogan should be replaced as QB) as factual reporting (that there was a QB controversy).  Further, he weaseled into it by using my favorite crutch "some have argued..." without giving sources or citations.

He has tried to mold statistics and facts to fit his viewpoint rather than molding his viewpoint to fit the statistics and facts.  The old saw that he "uses statistics much as a drunk uses a lamppost, for support rather than illumination" holds true. CT Card (if I recall) had an extensive post showing that the statistics he was citing didn't imply what he wanted them to imply.

His reporting has been lazy, often parroting what we already know or what has been written by the coach.  I think this is a good example, where the article doesn't tell us much new information.  I think it is natural to compare him to Andy Drukarev, who works very hard to get information (especially about recruiting) for a much lower profile outfit.  David falls very short in that comparison.

My criticisms do not arise from animosity towards Lombardi.  As I said, I want him to succeed, because it would be great if we had more high quality Stanford-oriented content, especially at a nationally prominent media outlet like ESPN.  But I want that content to be well-written, easily readable, insightful, and original.  I don't want another idiot out there generating clickbait by posting bombastic and opinionated bloviation that is designed to generate a reaction rather than inform readers.  WE already have Wilner for that.

BC

Re: Spring questions - TrumpCard - 03-03-2015

+1 Ferrari.

Re: Spring questions - slide - 03-04-2015

+1 BostonCard


Re: Spring questions - PrinceLightfoot - 03-04-2015

+1 CTCard

Re: Spring questions - Hulk01 - 03-04-2015

+2 My assessment exactly.  The writing is maddening.  I once copied one of his articles and edited it, and almost sent it to him.  It was 66-% shorter and said exactly the same things, none of which really needed saying to anyone who saw the game.

His radio interviews reflected all of these weaknesses.  He'd ramble for two minutes that contained ten seconds of content. He'd turn it over to Sam Fisher, who'd shared 30 seconds of content in 25 seconds.  I kept wishing David would just interview Sam, but David's interviews always end up sounding like David interviewing David.

I also don't sense that Lombardi has a feel for the game, or has devoted much time to learning mor.e about it

Re: Spring questions - BostonCard - 03-04-2015

Again, I compare him to another reporter that covers Stanford, Andy Drukarev.  When Kevin Gemmell handled the Stanford blog on ESPN, I thought he did a fairly good job at digging beyond the surface.  I get that not everything that is reported is going to be completely original.  But that doesn't excuse parroting lines from a press conference and calling it a day.

I've been critical of Wilner in the past for similar reasons, but I have also acknowledged when his sources and hard work produced new information.  For example, he had a better finger on the pulse of Pac-12 expansion than anyone, and has a better understanding of the Pac-12 Networks and the league's TV deals than anyone else.

BC

Re: Spring questions - CrazedZooChimp - 03-04-2015

(03-04-2015, 12:31 PM)garvin link Wrote:
Quote:His reporting has been lazy, often parroting what we already know or what has been written by the coach.  I think this is a good example, where the article doesn't tell us much new information.

Not sure this is a valid criticism. Journalists write for a much broader and less-informed audience than the CardBoard. When this board started up, much of our discussion was triggered by and keyed to stories we saw in the Chron, Mercury and (RIP) Examiner. Now very little of it is, because we have so many well-informed people here that we're way ahead of the curve. Yet a much much more casual (and much bigger) audience for Stanford football exists, and that's the one that mainstream media reporters are serving. A good reporter should still be able, at times, to tell us stuff we don't know. But a lot of stories -- particularly one like this, a curtain-opener on spring football -- are going to be way more general than we would really like.

Lombardi writes for the ESPN Pac-12/Stanford blogs, it's not that much broader of an audience than the Cardboard.

My complaint with Lombardi is roughly the same as what BC said.  His writing always comes off as amateurish to me.  I think his articles usually read like they belong on a fan blog or message board, not a professional media outlet.  I also think he makes conclusions that are wrong and pretends they're facts, using stats to incorrectly support them.  Like BC said, he gets very narrow minded in his view, which again reminds me of a fan blog or message board post.  Compared to the two guys that I'm used to reading on the Pac-12 blog, Miller and Gemmell, Lombardi doesn't come close.  Actually, Bonagura is also much better.  Maybe it would be better to have a non-Stanford grad covering the team.

The reason I complain about Lombardi is mostly because I wish the guy covering Stanford were better.  Maybe I should blame ESPN for hiring Gemmell the first Stanford blog year (and then Bonagura who I think had been covering Stanford for CBS) and spoiling me with much better writing and reporting...

Re: Spring questions - BostonCard - 03-04-2015

(03-04-2015, 01:26 PM)garvin link Wrote:Actually, I think Wilner has done a very poor job on the TV deal, at least the DirecTV part of it. He's made little or no attempt to get DirecTV's view of events -- what he portrays at DirecTV's "thinking" is usually just the Pac-12's view of DirecTV. That's why, for months, he said DirecTV was just posturing as part of negotiations, but would sign a deal shortly before the 2011 football season began. Four years later, we're still waiting.

Fair enough, although I recall him being pretty careful about caveats.  I think that's more a sign of where he has sources... definitely in the Pac-12 office but none with DirectTV.  Of course, you could argue that that, in itself, is lazy journalism.  Wilner not having sources with DTV is not surprising, but other reporters, who cover the business of television, should.  In my field, if you lack certain expertise that you need for a particular domain, you collaborate with someone who does.  I'm not sure it should be any different in journalism, though I would imagine that the decimation of the journalist ranks probably hurts here.

BC

One last thought - BostonCard - 03-04-2015

There's a decent chance that David Lombardi is reading these forums.  I hope if that's the case, he takes my criticism in the spirit in which it is meant.  I really do want him to succeed at ESPN for the reasons I've mentioned.  I have certainly been blunt, perhaps even harsh in my characterization, but I hope he takes the criticism as constructive.  There's a lot of potential there, and his move to ESPN represents a great opportunity for both him and Stanford fans, so I hope he makes the most of it.

BC

Re: Spring questions - BostonCard - 03-04-2015

(03-03-2015, 07:00 PM)CompSci87 link Wrote:As long as we're nitpicking, in the first sentence "glances of" should read "glances at".

In his defense, that seems to have been the common introductory paragraph for all the Spring Questions series, so he may not have written that part.  For example, it is here in Ted Miller's discussion on UCLA:

http://espn.go.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id/84896/spring-questions-ucla

BC

Re: Spring questions - teejers1 - 03-04-2015

Damn, BC, in your litany of complaints about Lombardi, I was expecting the last entry to read:  'and he dated my wife before we were married.'

I'm more on the Ferrari/garvin side of this "debate."  And the bitching and nitpicking is pretty unbecoming, at least from this angle.

I'm no devotee of Lombardi - I read some articles he links and not others - but IIRC, I thought his post game video recaps on the Bootleg were pretty good. 

Re: Spring questions - BostonCard - 03-04-2015

(03-04-2015, 06:09 PM)teejers1 link Wrote:I'm no devotee of Lombardi - I read some articles he links and not others - but IIRC, I thought his post game video recaps on the Bootleg were pretty good.

Slide was on my side (I think that's what he meant when he wrote +1 BostonCard).

I have not had a chance to see his post game video recaps.  It may well be that he is better in front of a live camera than in front of a keyboard, in which case his problem is simply that he's in the wrong media.  Since ESPN has a fairly extensive television operation, maybe his future will be anchoring or reporting for ESPN rather than blogging for the ESPN website.

BC

Re: Spring questions - OutsiderFan - 03-04-2015

Heaven forbid there might actually be some discussion about Spring practices themselves here.

What are the big stories in Spring aside from the DL and backup QB?

Re: Spring questions - MustardtheBallCarrier - 03-04-2015

(03-04-2015, 06:09 PM)teejers1 link Wrote:Damn, BC, in your litany of complaints about Lombardi, I was expecting the last entry to read:  'and he dated my wife before we were married.'

I'm more on the Ferrari/garvin side of this "debate."  And the bitching and nitpicking is pretty unbecoming, at least from this angle.

I'm no devotee of Lombardi - I read some articles he links and not others - but IIRC, I thought his post game video recaps on the Bootleg were pretty good.

Completely agree.  The pedantic commentary on journalism I can wade through, but this is just ugly and mean.   

Re: Spring questions - CompSci87 - 03-04-2015

(03-04-2015, 05:30 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:[quote author=CompSci87 link=topic=11816.msg114079#msg114079 date=1425434446]

As long as we're nitpicking, in the first sentence "glances of" should read "glances at".

In his defense, that seems to have been the common introductory paragraph for all the Spring Questions series, so he may not have written that part.  For example, it is here in Ted Miller's discussion on UCLA:

http://espn.go.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id/84896/spring-questions-ucla
[/quote]

Interesting, at least to a champion nitpicker like me. Miller's article has the same sentence -- except for that one word! Lombardi has "at"; Miller has "of".