Really you have to go back and read yesterday’s Owner’s Corner a second time, as I did on the train ride home last night, to appreciate fully the magnitude of Ted’s media diagnosis. In his state-of-the-Caps, year-in-review open letter to fans, Ted offered up a single sentence about the opening of the team’s world-class practice facility at Ballston, Kettler Capitals Iceplex, and slightly more emphasis on bloggers and the role they’re playing in covering the team today.
As in, eighteen paragraphs worth.
Eighteen paragraphs of rationale and rally cry for hockey bloggers. On the train last night, yellow highlighting the media section of Ted’s letter in my lap, it suddenly dawned on me: the owner was declaring jihad on the MSM.
In the first of the eighteen paragraphs we are introduced to the topic with “I’d like to focus on another topic near and dear to my heart: blogs and user-generated content.”
A bit later the dagger is unsheathed and thrust:
“One of the motivating factors in the growth of blogs has been a backlash against the mainstream media.”
Indeedy!
Dagger, turning:
“The Post . . . is struggling with deep [emphasis mine] circulation declines and advertising sales issues as well as trying to keep their writers in the midst of cutbacks and layoffs.”
Is this overstatement?: there are actually two rebuilds related to hockey taking place in D.C. these days. The owner in his letter yesterday offered us some insight on this matter:
“Blogs are nothing new to those of us who follow the web, but they have never been more powerful . . . Almost a dozen blogs have been credentialed for games at Verizon Center this season. That’s 12 more outlets that have been able to tell our story of a young, hard-working team that has grown to become one of the toughest to play in the NHL.”
True story: quite recently I would arrive at my neighborhood Metro station, secure copies of both major daily newspapers, and allow the presence or absence of Caps’ coverage within them largely to determine the mood of my morning commute.
These days, however, I spend the entirety of the train ride creating some of that coverage.
You get one guess as to who’s the happiest train rider in D.C. these days.