DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Tony Grossi - Gone too far?

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I don't care that Grossi dislikes Lerner. That's his right. Grossi isn't a fan; he's a writer. He can't be both.

However, to say this in public is a terrible, unprofessional idea. Just stupid.

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Seconded.

He's been an over-the-top ass for years and he finally over-stepped his bounds. He deserved to be fired and the media landscape in Cleveland just got a little prettier for it happening.

As for Mary, I've always felt she was a small-time reporter in a market which is too big for her. However, I've never had a problem with her opinions even if I didn't agree with them.

Otto, quit sniffin' glue. It's making you crotchety. . Lumping everyone together into an angry package if they liked the Grossi firing looks like just a reason to take a shot at fandom. If you wanna vent in a way that's reminiscent of your position, go buy a piece of fruit at the store, then get back in line to return it and complain about it while making everyone wait

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In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with him writing opinion articles and tweets criticizing the Browns org. When done in context with being the head beat writer for the local paper, everything is wrong with it.

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As the beat writer, I'm sure he could question Lerner's selection of coaches, FO personnel, etc.. as long as you show signs of being objective, I would expect those to be within bounds.. but you can't go personal on the guy and that's what he did.

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First off, you about done insulting everyone?

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I guess since you read the Washington paper(s) I should bow to your wisdom, lol.

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The Browns and Lerner said they didn't contact the PD. The PD said the Browns didn't contact them and it was an internal decision - who in the hell are you to say I'm not operating in the real world because I or anyone else happen to believe both parties?

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Like I said, if your standards are so low as to appriciate Grossi,, have at it.

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Otto Please give me an honest opinion. Do I have a open mind?

I think Grossi is a honest to goodness .butthole, Do you agree with me or not?

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You've got 25,000 posts on here and about an ounce of sense in all of them combined.

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That is sig worthy!

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Otto, quit sniffin' glue. It's making you crotchety. . Lumping everyone together into an angry package if they liked the Grossi firing looks like just a reason to take a shot at fandom. If you wanna vent in a way that's reminiscent of your position, go buy a piece of fruit at the store, then get back in line to return it and complain about it while making everyone wait

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You are a piece of work, I gotta admit that.

Sorry, I'm not kissing your butt like some of the guys on here and asking your opinion before I express mine.

Excuse me while I get back in line and complain about my fruit.....

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Otto Please give me an honest opinion. Do I have a open mind?

I think Grossi is a honest to goodness .butthole, Do you agree with me or not?

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Where the Browns are concerned, no I do not think you have an open mind.

As far as Tony goes, I do not think that he is a butthole. But I have not met the man or spent any amount of time with him. Nor have you, I imagine. I have only read his writing and seen him on TV. Seems like a decent guy to me.

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HMMMM No open mind? OK Difference in opinion no problem maybe we both both right at times

As far as your imagination, you would be wrong however.

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"Some folks just need someone to blame.. if you wanna know how this stuff starts, look at the media.."

The last stand of all politicians;
When all else fails,blame the media.

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Like I said, if your standards are so low as to appriciate Grossi,, have at it.

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Dude, I'll put my standards up against yours any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

You've got 25,000 posts on here and about an ounce of sense in all of them combined.

And trust me, I'm not the only one who thinks this either.

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Hmmm, insulting people is what you do when you don't have anything else to say...

I get it now...

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Tony Grossi's reassignment was a painful necessity: Ted Diadiun
Published: Saturday, January 28, 2012, 9:01 AM
By Ted Diadiun The Plain Dealer
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David I. Andersen, The Plain DealerTony Grossi, who had covered the Cleveland Browns at The Plain Dealer for roughly two decades, was removed from the beat on Tuesday by Editor Debra Adams Simmons, Managing Editor Thom Fladung and Sports Editor Roy Hewitt after an ill-considered Tweet went unintentionally viral.
The era of instant communication has brought with it two overriding verities: We have the ability to let loose our thoughts practically the instant we have them. And we have the corresponding responsibility to keep our inner editor on standby alert during every waking minute.

Unfortunately, and to our peril, the second occasionally fails to keep up with the first. That is true of anyone who has access to an email account or a cellphone, and it is especially true for those of us who make our living as communicators. Once it's out there, it's OUT there -- and no amount of attempted deletions, apologies, excuses or modern technology can take it back.

That sad fact led to a painful decision Plain Dealer editors had to make last week.

Tony Grossi, who had covered the Cleveland Browns at this newspaper for roughly two decades, was removed from the beat on Tuesday by Editor Debra Adams Simmons, Managing Editor Thom Fladung and Sports Editor Roy Hewitt after an ill-considered Tweet went unintentionally viral.

Grossi had typed a message, which he termed "a smart-(aleck) remark to a colleague," that called Browns owner Randy Lerner "a pathetic figure, the most irrelevant billionaire in the world."

But instead of sending a text message only to its intended recipient, he hit the wrong button and sent it out to his 15,000-plus Twitter followers.

Grossi said he discovered to his horror what had happened within about 60 seconds, and immediately retracted the Tweet, but the damage had been done. When he realized the following morning that the Tweet had been copied and re-Tweeted around the football world, he called Fladung to give him the bad news.

An apology -- to Lerner, the Browns and Grossi's Twitter followers -- was quick in coming. Editors also posted an apology on cleveland.com and Publisher Terrance C.Z. Egger sent Lerner and the Browns a letter of apology.

But Fladung was still left with a problem: His Browns reporter had revealed to the world his utter disdain for the owner of the team he was covering. How would the paper's readers be able to have faith in the objectivity in his reports following that?

"In another area, it would be an obvious call," said Fladung. "What if the reporter covering City Hall called the mayor pathetic and irrelevant? What if a reporter in the Columbus bureau said that about the governor? They would be removed from the beat immediately. It's the same with this situation."

Editor Adams Simmons said the discussion was dismal, but the three editors reluctantly decided that Grossi could not continue on the beat.

"If in your most private moments you feel like the leader of the institution you cover is pathetic, that raises questions about how fair you can be," she said. "And once those opinions become public, it becomes a bigger problem. There's the potential for readers to question the objectivity of everything you write."

An important point to make is that there is a difference between columnists and reporters at a newspaper.

"If it had been a columnist who wrote that, we might cringe, but that role is different," said Adams Simmons. "They're paid to offer up opinions, however prickly. But we're not asking them to go out and cover a team in a fair and balanced and objective way, like we are with a reporter."

It's also important that you know what didn't happen, because there are a lot of questions and conclusions being thrown around by people who don't know what they're talking about:

• Tony Grossi was not fired, nor was the move disciplinary. He will be reassigned to a different role in the sports department, not as punishment but because editors decided that he could no longer credibly remain on that beat.

• The Browns had nothing to do with the decision. None of the editors involved talked with anyone connected with the team before making the call. In fact, the Browns' first communication with the paper's leadership was not until Wednesday, after the decision had been made, when Egger met with Browns President Mike Holmgren and Lerner.

• The Browns did not threaten to remove Grossi's media credential, nor did such a consideration play any role in the decision, as a radio talk-show host alleged last week.

• This was not an issue of First Amendment rights or of censorship. Anyone who works at the paper has the right to say, write or Tweet anything they wish. But they do not have a corresponding right to say it in the newspaper or on the website or on their newspaper Twitter account. If they do, the editors who are in charge of maintaining the credibility of the newspaper have the right to change their assignment.

Understandably, Grossi does not agree with the decision. He said he didn't mean it as a malicious Tweet, that he doesn't typically interact with Lerner, "and my opinion of him doesn't color my coverage of the team."

"We're given these marching orders to Tweet your beat, to gather and attract a following, to be provocative, because it's good for our brand to interact with the readers," he said. "But we're all learning the perils of this new invention."

Reporters know or should know the mechanics of Tweeting, and that the journalistic standards are the same as they are with any other form of reporting. But he's right that newspaper folks are asked to perform on a lot more platforms than in the past, and to do it quickly, without a lot of reflective time.

Grossi is a passionate guy with strong, honest opinions, who cares deeply about the team and its fans, and he brings that quality to his reporting -- mostly for good but not always. In 1990, his acrimonious relationship with then-owner Art Modell led to a journalistic breach that resulted in his removal from the Browns beat and reassignment to general NFL coverage, where he stayed until the Browns came back under different ownership in 1999. Modell had no personal impact on that decision, either -- I know, because I was metro editor and then sports editor during that time.

He's been on the beat since the Browns returned, and he has done a terrific job. Nobody disputes that. I'll go further and say that I've never read a football writer who does a better job at game-day coverage -- telling us what happened and why -- than Tony Grossi. So this is a big loss, for us at the paper as much as anyone.

Knowing all that, the editors in charge made a painful but principled decision based on what they believed best for the newspaper. The good news is that we'll still have Grossi's passion and ability. But it will be in a different area of the sports section.

Diadiun is The Plain Dealer's reader representative.

To reach Ted Diadiun: tdiadiun@plaind.com, 216-999-4408

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Unless people just want to believe what the want to believe, no matter if it's true or not, then that should it to rest.,

As if I believe it will

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"If it had been a columnist who wrote that, we might cringe, but that role is different," said Adams Simmons. "They're paid to offer up opinions, however prickly. But we're not asking them to go out and cover a team in a fair and balanced and objective way, like we are with a reporter."

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None of the editors involved talked with anyone connected with the team before making the call.

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Keep beating your head against the wall and your brains will turn into the same kind of mush they are spoon-feeding you with that "editorial". One thing I've come to believe about people in positions of power: Don't listen to what they say; watch what they do.

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• The Browns did not threaten to remove Grossi's media credential, nor did such a consideration play any role in the decision, as a radio talk-show host alleged last week.

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Just moved him away from reporting on a team where it's damn clear he can't be objective.

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Then these radio stations claim they are supporters of the Browns...

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Tell me what's not objective about calling an owner "pathetic"

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As far as what the PD did, how about removing a reporter from a beat for doing what you hired and paid him to do, and then not having his back when he stepped - accidently - over some invisible line?

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That’s got to trouble any Browns fan still holding out hope of Lerner selling the Browns (to local investors, preferably) before they are left as the only NFL franchise (they are currently one of four) never to play in a Super Bowl.

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No, Lerner didn’t draft Charlie Frye, Brady Quinn or Colt McCoy. And he doesn’t formulate game plans or call plays. But when a team is mired in mediocrity this long, fingers need to be pointing upstairs.

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It’s almost as if there should be a limit on how long one person can own a franchise without elevating it from the depths of despair.

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"If in your most private moments you feel like the leader of the institution you cover is pathetic, that raises questions about how fair you can be," she said. "And once those opinions become public, it becomes a bigger problem. There's the potential for readers to question the objectivity of everything you write."

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Seriously, most of your stuff on here is either laughable or a total rehash of someone else's posts. So when I comment on your 25,000 posts being 99% pablum it's not really an insult it's really more a statement of fact.

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Yours and a few other view of fact no doubt..

But then, what does it say about you that when you can't win an argument on facts, you resort to insults..

I think it speaks volumes about your mental makeup.

I mean seriously,, defending Grossi is like saying it's ok for the titanic to sink

But listen, if you wanna make it personal, be my guest.. again I question your journalistic standards when you defend a man so obviously trying to turn his readership against the Browns for no other reason than that he doesn't like the owner, the President, the GM, the Coach, the players and anyone else associated with the organzation.


it's almost comical

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I will also, again, say that Tony deserved some sort of disciplinary action for his "tweet". But pulling him from the Browns beat was a massive overreaction that can only be attributed to the pressure they were receiving from the Browns.

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Had Grossi accidently tweeted that he didn't like Lerner or thought he was not contributing enought to the team (other than money) or any other such thing I believe this could have been overlooked.

But his tweet was absolutely vile. I mean, "Pathetic figure" and "irrelevant billionaire" are poignant descriptive words coming from a wordsmith by trade. Pathetic: causing or evoking pity, sympathetic sadness, sorrow, etc.; pitiful. Irrelevant: not relevant; not applicable or pertinent.

Those are some seriously harsh choice of words to use against the owner of the team who he's being paid to cover in a "fair and balanced" manner. Sure he's entitled to his opinion just as we are here on the board. But he has to refrain from such despicable language publicly.

Of course, he didn't mean for it to go public but it did and he can't backtrack on it.

Because it went public, accident or not, how do the Browns deal with and welcome him going forward as Grossi walks into a press conference, the locker room or any interview involving coaches or other personnel? That couldn't be anything but very discomforting and stressful for anyone employed by the team.

Add to that what the PD said about objectivity in his reporting and together you have a situation where Grossi has to go do something else.

You may be right that he team had something to say about it cause every once in a while you are right about something. But my view is that it didn't take a word from the Browns to reassign Grossi to do something else.

As I said, how do you send him into that building in Berea after he let that vile, hatred-filled statement about the guy who owns it? The PD didn't have to mention that aspect of it to make it relevant to the issue.

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That couldn't be anything but very discomforting and stressful for anyone employed by the team.

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jk

What I find kinda funny and no one has mentioned is that in the report from the PD they say he has been removed before from the beat of the Browns for inappropiate behavior againt the previous owner.
So instead of a single event this is his 2nd time of having a bias against an owner. Ive always disliked Grossi esp for the last 3 years Ive talked to him on twitter and he thinks he knows more about how to run the team then team does.
Now seeing as I dont see NFL teams calling him to run their teams I alwasy took it with a grain of salt but I never watched his pod casts or really read any of his stuff so his being removed wont affect me much.

The PD knows the man better then we do and this is his 2nd time running afoul of an owner of the Browns. They (the PD) were proactive and removed him AGAIN before the Browns needed to make any calls what so ever covert or otherwise.

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