PPG Sports Editor Thinks He is White House Press Secretary; Refuses to Comment on Sports

By Artistry

Let's get one thing out of the way: GTOG loves the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette unconditionally. This is the newspaper that still employs microwave columnist Ron Cook, allowed Dave Molinari to write so many uninformative and at times unintelligible hockey stories that he actually made it into the Hall of Fame, and took brilliant Penguins' writer Dejan Kovacevic and buried him on the Pirates' beat. Despite all of these, and many more, transgressions, it's a regular stop for us. For better or worse, we've been reading it all our lives. Having said that, time for some tough love.



Sports Editor Jerry Micco did one of his on-line chats on Wednesday, and he made a couple of revealing comments.

1) In response to a question about why the PPG did not cover or make any mention of Maurkice Pouncey's claim that he was giving himself a 75% chance to play in the Super Bowl, Micco wrote:  "Because we had enough people tell us that Pouncey would not play." Therefore, Micco reasoned, there was no reason to credit the views of the player himself.

Not a Dependable Source

2) When asked what he thought of Jordan Staal's match penalty for half-heartedly punching Brandon "Pacino" Prust, Micco said, "I didn't see a thing, I was working. I heard about it, but did not see the actual punch, but the fact that he got a match penalty says all I need to know." Really? Well, I guess the referees are always right. Probably no reason to spend thirty seconds on Youtube educating yourself on what all your readers will want to talk about.

Jerry, listen to GTOG for a second. Even though you've made the bizarre choice to be super formal when referring to athletes in your feature stories - i.e., the Post-Gazette goes with "Mr. Roethlisberger" instead of just "Roethlisberger" in features - you are not the New York Times. You are a local sports editor. It's OK sometimes to, you know, editorialize. The three dudes who showed mercy on you by joining your chat today were doing so because they wanted to talk about sports. Pittsburgh sports fans are passionate, they have opinions, and they usually have a very good sense - better than you, evidently - of the hot button topics of the day. They weren't there to hear you say "No comment."