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Journalism evolves, or it dies!!

Posted in Poking the Canucks, Ranting and Raving on February 27, 2013| Leave a Comment »

The bloggers already won, News-Times. You’re like a zombie walking around that doesn’t realize it’s dead.

It’s not 1952.

No matter how hard the Canadian-owned “local” papers want to insist, in pious editorials, that the world is still operating the same, it is not.

The reality is more people are getting their news online than from your print editions. Not as many people are still clipping articles to put on the frig. When they do it now, they’re printing them off the internet first, then posting them on said frig.

The News-Times claims “It’s from the local newspaper, you will learn about births, deaths, high school sports, weddings, engagements, anniversaries, what’s new in business and much more.”

Well sure, if you want to read about things three to five days after they happen, in as dry as terms as possible, than the Canuck-financed rags are your ideal landing spot.

I will try to be as nice as possible here, since I greatly respect the writer of that editorial, Keven Graves, and the man who holds the Sports Editor job at the News-Times, Jim Waller.

Blow it out your sanctimonious ass!

I am doing this part-time (without your reporters salaries and benefits and, I would hope, free donuts) and I have buried your papers.

I cover middle school sports. You do not. I will be in the Coupeville Middle School gym for four and a half hours today watching middle school girls’ basketball. Will you?

I cover JV sports. You do not.

I have written more than a hundred (I’m not being hyperbolic — go count them) features on Coupeville High School athletes, from superstars to bench players. You have not.

NO ONE is turning to the papers propped up by the robber barons in Moosejaw to find out what is happening in Coupeville. That’s reality.

You can disparage the bloggers all you want (we’re not “real” or “professional,” or “real professional”), but we are the ones actually breaking news. We are the ones covering what you’re not. We are the ones who don’t go home at 4:30.

I have published 668 articles and more than three times that number in photos in six months. Your papers, not so much. Really, really, really, really not so much.

And may I add, I find your statement “However, as a good editor once told me, a reporter must be able to look his or her sources in the eye at the grocery store,” to be slightly hilarious, since virtually all of your reporters DO NOT live in Coupeville. Heck, some of them don’t even live on Whidbey Island.

I see my sources at PC, I see them at the library, I see them at Christopher’s, I see them at games, because, oh I don’t know, I actually live in the town I cover. And when I do see them, I actually know their names.

It’s a whole new journalistic world out here in 2013, and your loss is the readers gain. They don’t have to wait for you to spoon-feed them a little dribble or two when other “non-professional” sources are willing to give them a waterfall.

Tonight the parents of girls like Skyler Lawrence and Maggie Crimmins will read about their daughters playing middle school hoops this afternoon. Not in your papers, of course, but they will find a way.

Journalism evolves, or it dies. It finds a way, whether you like it or not.

The News-Times editorial that chafed me a bit: http://www.whidbeynewstimes.com/opinion/193411851.html

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Dear Canada, we want our history back, you syrup-suckin’ hosers!!

Posted in Baseball, Little League, Poking the Canucks, Ranting and Raving on February 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

And now I’m cheesed off again.

Every time I think I’ve gotten past my hatred of the morons in Moosejaw who bought the Whidbey Examiner and then, in one twitch of a data entry person’s finger, erased three years worth of my bylines, I find a new reason to let my annoyance run free again.

When they flipped the Examiner’s web site to resemble that of the News-Times (and every other corporate drone paper Black Press owns), most of my bylines vanished in an instance, replaced by that of Vincent Nattress, an accomplished local chef who had written three articles to my 41,209.

When I raised this “quirk” with the Evil Empire, they responded by simply disabling all the links.

Bam! Problem solved! I never existed!

And so the Examiner, the plucky paper that could (until carpetbaggers sold it to robber barons), became irrelevant in an instant. Three years worth of history, gone, vanished off this thing called the internet.

You know, the internet, the thing that the kids actually read, unlike your yellowing bound volumes from 1912.

So let’s say you want to look up the biggest event in Central Whidbey sports in the last three years. Let’s say you want to go back to July 24, 2010, a day when the little town of Coupeville beat the big boys and won a state little league title.

A day when Korbin and Brian and Ben and Morgan and Jake and the Aarons and a lot of other guys beat Goliath.

A day when we were the champs.

A day that will stand in local memories forever.

Let’s say you want to go back and look at all the stories I wrote during that voyage, of the wins, of the comebacks, of the rallies, of the community effort to raise funds.

Let’s say you want to do that.

Well, forget about it, because Canada couldn’t give a crap.

Try going on the Examiner web site and looking up “little league,” “Central Whidbey Little League” or “state champs.” Heck, try looking up “baseball.”

And what do you get?

Yep, a 404 error that simply states: “We’re Canadian. We don’t give a crap about your history.”

And they wonder why we call them hosers, eh?

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Drink your milkshake? It’s already gone, baby!!

Posted in Poking the Canucks, Ranting and Raving on January 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Let’s dance…

Dear Whidbey News-Times and Whidbey Examiner … I mean Sound Publishing … I mean Black Press … I mean … how many levels ARE there to this Canadian Corporate Conglomerate, this Evil Empire that has beached itself on Whidbey Island and befouled our once-pristine Island papers?!?!?!

OK, OK, OK … let’s start over.

Dear Moosejawians … Manitobians … creepy Canucks … , Molson-drinkin’ hosers (your pants are suspiciously wet and that’s NOT maple syrup!) … am I getting close?

Hi, my name is David and I’m NOT a responsible journalist.

I print inflammatory headlines. I use photos out of context. I am not impartial. I interject my own opinions into my stories. I cover EVERYTHING.

I am kicking your ass … and I’m only doing this part-time.

I am your worst nightmare come home to roost.

Journalism has changed, in some ways for the better, in some ways for the worse. But it has changed and you have not and you are dying.

I intend to live on.

I know Coupeville. You do not.

I am Coupeville. You have a building here, usually vacant by 4:30.

You print the bare basics three days after the event.

I have 21 articles (seriously) and 34,901 photos (well, maybe not that many, but close…) up online before you drink your morning coffee.

Imagine what I could do if I gave in after all these years and got a cell phone and posted live from games?

Imagine what I could do if I didn’t hold on to at least some of those journalistic ethics better men and women than myself tried to pound into my thick skull?

Imagine if I got really pissed?

Think of a world where you have erased three years of my bylines from the Whidbey Examiner and don’t give a crap. Now imagine that I take that personally.

Imagine a world where I am going to beat you to EVERY scoop.

Imagine a world where I am going to out-write, out-work and out-taunt you.

Imagine a world where I am going to do a feature story on EVERY SINGLE Coupeville athlete, even if I have to stalk Kole Kellison at every soccer game like a … well … stalker. He will talk one day. Oh, he will talk.

Imagine a world where I am going to dry up your advertising, business by business.

Imagine a world where you are going to lose and you are going to look foolish doing it.

Now, imagine a world where you smarten up and move your money out of your failing Whidbey Island newspapers and move it squarely behind me.

Imagine a world where, instead of getting a daily Wet Willie, you’re suddenly on the side of good again.

And where do you find that world?

You write out the sizable check to David Svien and you mail it to 145 N. Sherman.

It’s in a town called Coupeville.

Some day you’ll have to visit it.

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50,000 reasons to join the revolution!!

Posted in Poking the Canucks, Ranting and Raving on January 3, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Canada never saw the wedgie coming.

50,000.

That’s how many page views we’ve pulled in so far, in less than five months.

And, even though our bread and butter is covering, as the name of the site says, Coupeville sports, it seems there is some universal appeal. Our readership is spread out, not just across Whidbey Island, but across the United States, and, for that matter, across the globe.

Ever since I did a feature on foreign exchange student turned Wolf cheerleader Iris Ryckaert, I’ve maintained a loyal following out of Belgium. It seems once they saw photos of Hunter Hammer doin’ what Hunter Hammer does best (being page hit gold, Jerry!!), they were hooked.

If you look to your right, you’ll notice our list of sponsors have grown, as well. We have 19 now, with a 20th one (PS Hair Design) in the wings.

These businesses have joined the fight to keep local, independent journalism alive on an Island where a giant Canadian media conglomerate has slurped up all three newspapers (and then erased bylines off of work done in the old days by people such as myself).

These sponsors (and the individual donators on David’s Best Ever Friends list at the top of the site) believe JV and middle school sports deserve to be covered just as much as varsity sports.

They buy into the mad dream that one day I will have accomplished my goal of doing a feature story on EVERY SINGLE ATHLETE who pulls on a uniform for the Wolves — even if I have to tie Kole Kellison down and force him to talk into the tape recorder.

They are us. We are they. Together, whether we live here in Coupeville or read my words from afar, we are all Wolf Nation.

United we can give Canada a wedgie the likes of which they have never felt before.

To commemorate the 50,000th page view, I’m offering sponsorship ads for $100 for the life of the site.

Not the $250 we started at. $100 and you’re on here forever!

Write your checks to: David Svien.

Mail them to: 145 N. Sherman, Coupeville, WA 98239.

Or hand them to me at the next game. Unlike Canada, which goes home at 4:30, I actually follow the mantra of Bill O’Reilly — “We’ll do it live!!”

Do it because you want to cheese off the Canucks. Do it because you believe in independent journalism. Do it for the kids.

Whatever your reason may be, your help makes a difference. And your ad will be noticed.

50,000 page views don’t lie.

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Madison Tisa McPhee is awesome (and a few other random thoughts)!!

Posted in 2012: Looking Back, Poking the Canucks, Ranting and Raving on December 31, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Wolf Baby officially endorses Madison Tisa McPhee as the Most Awesome Wolf of 2012. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

It’s Dec. 31, 2012 and I’m still not Vincent Nattress.

Shot to the ribs! One last jab at the Whidbey Examiner and their Canadian Corporate Overlords, who managed to steal my bylines, hand them to someone else, scrub my stories from their database and thoroughly take a crap on 15 years of my writing.

Well, at least I got paid well for my time and … no, actually I didn’t, did I?

Which is at least part of the reason I became big in Belgium in 2012.

Part of coupevillesports.com is to give something back to the community and part of it is to inflict a wedgie on those who sold out the dream of independent journalism as soon as the first Canuck pay-off cleared at the bank.

So, what have I accomplished in these first 4.5 months, since I launched August 16?

431 posts. 780 photos. 20 sponsors. Numerous pissed off folks at Archbishop Thomas Murphy and Sultan and a few up Canada way. A few down this way, as well, as my number one commentator was a woman upset with my coverage of a missing local fisherman.

But, like I said, I’m big in Belgium, which is neck-and-neck with Canada as my second biggest readership base, trailing (surprise, surprise) the United States. My feature on Belgian foreign exchange student/Wolf cheerleader Iris Ryckaert got me started and at least some of those readers are still checking in on an almost daily basis.

So, I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

Overall, it’s been a nice ride so far, with big wins (suck it South Whidbey! suck it even harder Sultan!!), big announcements (Toni Crebbin retires, CHS kills The Wobble), nice quotes (“Does this school have good insurance?”), synchronized barfing (not as pretty as it sounds…), big shots to the nads (Gavin O’ Keefe breaks his leg, Ryan Griggs moves to Arizona) and superstars doing what superstars do (Breeanna Messner KO’s Orcas Island, Luke Merriman hits TWO buzzer-beating three point bombs in one middle school game, Jake Tumblin lays waste to Chimacum in the football finale).

And a special mention to two Wolves, Joel Walstad and Madison Tisa McPhee.

Walstad gets props for stuffing former teammate Taylor Ebersole’s shot during a basketball game at La Conner, proving the best players stay on Whidbey and don’t run away and cry to daddy at the first sign of trouble.

And MTM? Great hurdler. Great soccer player. But what makes her extra special was she let me run a photo of her taken in a Seattle ER mere moments after she smushed her nose something terrible in a collision on the pitch — the very definition of “breaking news.”

She could have told me to stick it where the sun don’t shine, and that was probably her first thought. But she didn’t, cause she’s awesome.

Caleb Valko gave good smack-talkin’. Messner, Nick Streubel, Bessie Walstad, Nathan Lamb and many more shone brightly in 2012. Gabe Wynn and Tiffany Briscoe are the future, and the future is bright.

But the MVP of the first 4.5 months? MTM, hands down.

Now just don’t break anything else. I’d rather write about you winning a state track title than to go all TMZ on you again.

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