Hersh: In figure skating, same old, same old | Page 5 | Golden Skate

Hersh: In figure skating, same old, same old

WeakAnkles

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 1, 2011
I wish I could be confident that the popularity of figure skating in the United States will automatically recover when the next Michelle Kwan comes along.

The loud laments about skating losing its audience began in about 2000. The real Michelle Kwan was at her height. At the previous Olympics U.S. ladies went 1-2. Youngsters such as Sasha Cohen, Sarah Hughes, Jenny Kirk and Naomi Nari Nam seemed to guarantee a bright future. The Salt Lake City judging scandal was in the unimagined future. Still, everyone was tearing his hair about the decline in audience interest, the loss of television revenue, and all the rest. In those days the culprit was supposedly that people were turned off by all the cheesefests and silly pro competitions.

Personally, I think the villain is simply cultural drift. I have the sad feeling that Japan is about to drift in the same direction, which will bring on the next round wondering what went wrong.

JMO.

This. Times a zillion. I've always thought the boom in skating post Kerrigan/Harding until Salt Lake City was more of an aberration than A Sign Of Things To Come. But it doesn't help that the ISU seems to be determined to aid and abet the drift.
 

UnsaneLily87

On the Ice
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Mar 8, 2006
He is a journalist whose job is to report the news. His article reported on well-documented problems with the sport of figure skating. It is not Hersh's job to offer "constructive" advice, suggestions, or whatever. Would you criticize a reporter of the current situation in Iraq who failed to offer "constructive" advice, suggestions etc on the situation? That's not a reporter's job. Don't blame Hersh for reporting the same news--the news itself hasn't changed for years.


This. Why do we hold skating journalists to this weird standard of being "nice"?
 

Sam-Skwantch

“I solemnly swear I’m up to no good”
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This. Why do we hold skating journalists to this weird standard of being "nice"?

I would can and do criticize our media and especially our overly politically motivated "journalists".. A lot worse than Mr. Hersh's articles. The thing is have you gone and read his last 5 or 6 articles on FS. It's as if nothing positive happened in Sochi. Where is the Mathew Parr write up? The fun of the team event and especially the cuteness of team Japan:love: we all see the bad but that isn't the only thing going on as he, for his last 5-6 articles(this entire year it seems) implies.

The biggest issue I have is just how poorly written it is. It's almost like he typed it up and never re-read it.
 

WeakAnkles

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Aug 1, 2011
I would can and do criticize our media and especially our overly politically motivated journalists. A lot worse than Mr. Hersh's articles. The thing is have you gone and read his last 5 or 6 articles on FS. It's as if nothing positive happened in Sochi. Where is the Mathew Parr write up? The fun of the team event and especially the cuteness of team Japan:love: we all see the bad but that isn't the only thing going on as he, for his last 5-6 articles(this entire year it seems) implies.

The biggest issue I have is just how poorly written it is. It's almost like he typed it up and never re-read it.

:rolleye:
 

Sandpiper

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Apr 16, 2014
I'm not asking him to be nice. I'm asking him to write a professional article. We can disagree about whether his article is "professional," but please do not try to dismiss anyone's argument as "we want journalists to be nice." No one has argued that.

Do you think emphasizing "the hug" brings a lot of credibility to his article--just like it brought so much credibility to South Korea's case? :rolleye: Do you think he shouldn't at least point out that Russia, Canada, USA, and Japan (I think Japan deserves to be among the great figure skating nations at this point) all voted against anonymous judging? Do you think he made any compelling arguments--heck, any arguments at all, because it's so "self-evident" to him--that bad judging system/corrupt judges is the reason for figure skating's decline in North America? Could the reason not be the lack of stars, the lack of an extraordinary series of circumstances (Harding-Kerrigan, then the emergence of Kwan)? Or, as Mathman suggested, simply cultural drift?

Hersh is a paid journalist. He can do better than "I'm tired of writing about it." One goal of journalism is to offer fresh angles on "old" news (considering more than half the countries voted to abolish anonymous judging, it's not even as same old, same old as Hersh thinks). Hersh seems to feel too strongly to not offer his own viewpoints--too bad he doesn't bother backing up any of his points. And no, he shouldn't ask his readers to comb through every single article he wrote over the past ten years to find where the arguments went. The article should stand alone.
 

Sam-Skwantch

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I wonder if Gracie were in Sotnikova's shoes how this story would read?
 

WeakAnkles

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I wonder if Gracie were in Sotnikova's shoes how this story would read?

When it was revealed that bribery and corruption were the order of the day in the preparations for the SLC Olympics, the media was all over the story. Or for a more recent story, take a look at American news media coverage of Lance Armstrong's admission of doping.

They may not be covering just how ootsie cutsie the Japanese team is, but the American news media LOVES a good scandal. Gosh, even about Americans.
 

YLFan

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Apr 3, 2014
I still have yet to see someone who isn't Korean or an open hater of Russia to have any real problem with the Olympic result.
 

Sandpiper

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Apr 16, 2014
^Okay, gross generalization (from the other side now ;)). I'm not Korean or anti-Russian (look at who my favourite skaters are!), but I think Yuna deserved gold. That being said, the sheer amount of vitriol being thrown at Adelina--considering none of this was her fault--is very overboard and off-putting.
 

loiza

On the Ice
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Mar 1, 2014
I still have yet to see someone who isn't Korean or an open hater of Russia to have any real problem with the Olympic result.


I am Brazilian and I have much problem with Olympic result
Ah ... I'm not an enemy of Russia, on the contrary, their culture fascinates me, ballet, literature, classical music. I love it all.
 

Sam-Skwantch

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When it was revealed that bribery and corruption were the order of the day in the preparations for the SLC Olympics, the media was all over the story. Or for a more recent story, take a look at American news media coverage of Lance Armstrong's admission of doping.

They may not be covering just how ootsie cutsie the Japanese team is, but the American news media LOVES a good scandal. Gosh, even about Americans.
My point is simple. This is an opinion piece in a blog and therefore opinions about it should be welcome. Mine is that Mr Hersh is overly critical and does himself no favors by not portraying the story from all sides. He has incomplete thoughts and its embarrassingly written. I don't expect everyone to agree with me or anything. I just don't like his approach. It's why I don't watch Fox News or MSNBC. American journalism has just become a political platform and less about the truth....the whole truth....and nothing but the truth.
 

WeakAnkles

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My point is simple. This is an opinion piece in a blog and therefore opinions about it should be welcome. Mine is that Mr Hersh is overly critical and does himself no favors by not portraying the story from all sides. He has incomplete thoughts and its embarrassingly written. I don't expect everyone to agree with me or anything. I just don't like his approach. It's why I don't watch Fox News or MSNBC. American journalism has just become a political platform and less about the truth....the whole truth....and nothing but the truth.

Whose truth?

At what point does "critical" become "overly critical"? If we go by YLFan, ANY criticism of Russia ipso facto means you're a Russian hater. I'm sorry, but life's more complicated than that. So is "truth."

I'm not saying you not supposed to or allowed to have an opinion. But what I see on here over and over again is that someone takes his or her own personal standards for things like "criticism" and "truth" and the like, and gets in a tizzy because not everyone agrees with those standards.
 

Sam-Skwantch

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I am Brazilian and I have much problem with Olympic result
Ah ... I'm not an enemy of Russia, on the contrary, their culture fascinates me, ballet, literature, classical music. I love it all.

I'm with you 100%. I love my Russian coaches and friends......and as most know Love my Russian skaters but I did have issues with the Sochi Judging. Even on behalf of my favorite Russian. It was a poor representation of this sport. It should have been much better IMO.
 

Meoima

Match Penalty
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Feb 13, 2014
I am Brazilian and I have much problem with Olympic result
Ah ... I'm not an enemy of Russia, on the contrary, their culture fascinates me, ballet, literature, classical music. I love it all.
I am Asian, and I also disagree with the skating events at Sochi.

I am quite fascinated with all the cultures out there. I am a fan of Russian classical musicians (Ricter, Gilels, Kogan, Bashmet, Kissin...) and my aunt is living in Moscow.
 

fairly4

Medalist
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Oct 28, 2007
i didnt read the article but i read gotoschools answer, some it it i agree with.\

what figure skating fans, authority doesn't understand is this.

people in North American--especially in the U.S.A. has seen the sport as corrupt for over 30 years, was hoping the new scoring system would change that. it hasn't.

Hersh is probably right with the writers, outside of their names on the paper no other paper picks it up and right about it even when skaters are from their own city .

But also this the young generation doesn't even know the sport or care to know it.

My niece who went and saw disney on ice thought is was fun, i asked her if she wanted to watch normal ice skating competitions . she said no, i asked why she didn't know, but her and her friends don't watch it. why
we can list thousand reasons like too boring, hard to understand, just for elite.

but if you don't involve the public you aren't going to grow.

why normal people troll through the internet and by chance happen to stop and read blogs of this and any other forum and read what said about other athlete how one should have won with a fall, shouldn't have won skating clean.
normal outside fans of sport don't know better you are really turning them away and talking down to them.

u.s.a is feed up with the empty words and empty promises from skaters, who don't want to skate in empty arenas i understand that. but what fans don't understand is why all skaters regardless of agency affiliation can't skate on tours like only img skaters only.

you have a lot wrong with sport and judging aspect is 1 part of it.
 

skatedreamer

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Feb 18, 2014
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United-States
I still have yet to see someone who isn't Korean or an open hater of Russia to have any real problem with the Olympic result.

I an American with no ties to Korea and who admires many things Russian, especially its ballet and the influence of ballet on Russian pairs skaters and ice dancers. And yes, I strongly disagree with the Sochi ladies' result.
 

gotoschool

Medalist
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Mar 5, 2014
I an American who no ties to Korea and who admires many things Russian, especially its ballet and the influence of ballet on Russian pairs skaters and ice dancers. Having said that, I strongly disagree with the Sochi ladies' result.

I am an American who can speak Russian at about an intermediate level, through my grammar is bad. I have lived in former Soviet countries for about 8 years and built a family in this part of the world. I absolutely looove Rochmaninoff, Prokofiev and some Tchaikovsky. Dostoevsky is one of my favorite writers and the Russian Revolution is one of my favorite periods of history. Plushenko is probably my favorite male skater and I am so grateful to Tarasova for her choreography of my two favorite freeskates, Mao's Bells of Moscow and Roch 2 and for her kind words of encouragement and praise during Mao's freeskate. I can't help but think Mao's passion for ballet also came from Russia. My life would be greatly impoverished without the fruits of Russian culture to nurture my soul. But, I still claim that the Sochi women's event was a scoring travesty for which the skaters themselves are victims of a corrupt system. I think it is important to point out, however, that it is an international organization- the ISU- that is to blame for this scoring shame. In this case, it takes more than one country to tango.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
To me the bottom line is this: Mr. Hersh is free to grumble and complain about the ISU. We can grumble and complain about Hersh. Hersh can even grumble about us -- he once did a Q&A in the interview section of Golden Skate in which he pointedly refused to answer argumentative questions from GS members who "hid behind internet aliases" rather that boldly owning their positions by using their own names, like he did. :)
 

Alba

Record Breaker
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Feb 26, 2014
I still have yet to see someone who isn't Korean or an open hater of Russia to have any real problem with the Olympic result.

That's nonsense tbh. Not only I'm not Russia's hater, on the contrary, but I'm not even a Kim fan.
Still, I would've put Adelina third. That's just my opinion, because although I follow FS since 1984 I'm not a judge, and I can't call myself an expert either.

I'm not asking him to be nice. I'm asking him to write a professional article. We can disagree about whether his article is "professional," but please do not try to dismiss anyone's argument as "we want journalists to be nice." No one has argued that.

Do you think emphasizing "the hug" brings a lot of credibility to his article--just like it brought so much credibility to South Korea's case? :rolleye: Do you think he shouldn't at least point out that Russia, Canada, USA, and Japan (I think Japan deserves to be among the great figure skating nations at this point) all voted against anonymous judging? Do you think he made any compelling arguments--heck, any arguments at all, because it's so "self-evident" to him--that bad judging system/corrupt judges is the reason for figure skating's decline in North America? Could the reason not be the lack of stars, the lack of an extraordinary series of circumstances (Harding-Kerrigan, then the emergence of Kwan)? Or, as Mathman suggested, simply cultural drift?

Hersh is a paid journalist. He can do better than "I'm tired of writing about it." One goal of journalism is to offer fresh angles on "old" news (considering more than half the countries voted to abolish anonymous judging, it's not even as same old, same old as Hersh thinks). Hersh seems to feel too strongly to not offer his own viewpoints--too bad he doesn't bother backing up any of his points. And no, he shouldn't ask his readers to comb through every single article he wrote over the past ten years to find where the arguments went. The article should stand alone.

This. :thumbsup:


I wonder if Gracie were in Sotnikova's shoes how this story would read?

Precisely!

Paola Mezzadri, C&L's coach (which is a great Ice Dance coach and a real cult in Italy as far as FS is concerned) practically was complaining that Italy didn't have a judge on the Ice Dance panel at Euros and Worlds 2013.

Franca Bianconi, B&H and Marchei's coach is an ISU Tech.Specialist as well.
You should listen to her comments on TV during the competions how she keeps bashing skaters like Sui&Han, Stolbova&Klimov and Osmond. Why? Because she saw them as direct rivals of her skaters B&H and Marchei. Not to speak about the russian girls at Euros because they were Carolina's rivals.

Now, if she does bash them openly on TV, what do you think she will do if she was a judge?!

These are the same people who complains about judging when it's not in their favor. So judging is good when I win, bad when I don't.
But hey no, let's keep waving Alla's picture hugging Adelina everywhere, becuase that's the real issue, right?! :sarcasm:


It's not just Cinquanta, it's Cinquantism. :laugh:

Ha. That's good. :biggrin:
 

Alba

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 26, 2014
he once did a Q&A in the interview section of Golden Skate in which he pointedly refused to answer argumentative questions from GS members who "hid behind internet aliases" rather that boldly owning their positions by using their own names, like he did. :)

That's a poor argument really. If he wants I can give him not only my name but the address too. Nothing bold about that.

If a question is not offensive and it's argumentative, why is it so important who is making it?
I can very well put a name and surname and still be fake. Does a name gives more substance to a question made? :rolleye:
 
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