The AJC just interviewed me about the Hawks!

[drzachary]

Since I'm so noisy and combative towards the Hawks journalists on Twitter, I got a chance to do a phone interview with one of the people at the AJC covering the Hawks. She asked me a lot of interesting questions about the fan experience, so I spoke my mind.

To sum it up, I said that Philips is aesthetically great, but the fan experience can be disheartening, especially the problem of other teams' fans infesting the place. I made sure to take the media to task for parroting the "Atlanta has bad fans" meme over and over as a lazy crutch; I stated that in my opinion, it's the journalists' job to figure out why! It's a question about Atlanta itself, not just the sports teams -- why do we not 'put on for our city?' There are a lot of answers, and it's good to see the local media at least asking about them!

Hopefully what I said isn't taken wildly out of context. :)

[exodus]

Since I'm so noisy and combative towards the Hawks journalists on Twitter, I got a chance to do a phone interview with one of the people at the AJC covering the Hawks. She asked me a lot of interesting questions about the fan experience, so I spoke my mind.

To sum it up, I said that Philips is aesthetically great, but the fan experience can be disheartening, especially the problem of other teams' fans infesting the place. I made sure to take the media to task for parroting the "Atlanta has bad fans" meme over and over as a lazy crutch; I stated that in my opinion, it's the journalists' job to figure out why! It's a question about Atlanta itself, not just the sports teams -- why do we not 'put on for our city?' There are a lot of answers, and it's good to see the local media at least asking about them!

Hopefully what I said isn't taken wildly out of context. :)

Care to share some of these combative comments? They must have struck a nerve to actually get a response.

[drzachary]

Care to share some of these combative comments? They must have struck a nerve to actually get a response.

Hmm, can't find specifics now, but ... Tweeting at John Hollinger (@johnhollinger), Michael Cunningham (@ajchawks), (and, to a lesser extent, the @hawksPRman) berating them for their laziness and lack of creativity in propagating the 'bad fans' meme... I think I might have insinuated that it's things like that (and how ESPN recaps had no adjectives for the Hawks besides the word 'lowly' for about five years) that continually remind us that sports media are NOT real journalists.

In particular, I was enraged at our own media pointing out the 'sparse fans' for the 7pm Heat game, which actually ended up being a packed house. In coverage of other teams (Miami again is a great example), you hear "the arena isn't full yet due to traffic." Atlanta has possibly the worst traffic in the entire country, and one of the most pathetic public transit systems as well, yet we're "bad fans" who don't get that excuse.

There was another game where the 'fans sure suck' meme was tweeted by one of those guys, of course not mentioning that the gametime was changed from 8pm to 7pm with barely any notification. Sure enough, it did fill up.

I also want the local writers that they might, in fact, be part of the problem -- "Hawks fans suck" floating around the ether might (subconsciously?) dissuade people from joining that club. Everyone knows Hawks fans aren't the cool kids, right?

[exodus]

Yeah that crap is definitely old, just like the Deron/Paul stuff. Nice job busting their chops about it in true HS fashion ;)

[AHF]

Now just wait to see what they do with it:

Dr. Z: "The media is lazy when they simply parrot that Atlanta fans are bad without looking into the reasons why which is the real story. Moreover, they sometimes inaccurately report events like games where it fills up well a bit late but it is reported like people don't care to show up at all. It is frustrating to deal with that kind of sloppy media coverage."

AJC: Atlanta fans are bad. As Atlanta fan 'Dr. Z' recently told the AJC, sometimes "people don't care to show up at all. It is frustrating to deal with." We at the AJC agree, Dr. Z. It is frustrating indeed.

[ATLBob]

Nice!

Now just wait to see what they do with it:

Dr. Z: "The media is lazy when they simply parrot that Atlanta fans are bad without looking into the reasons why which is the real story. Moreover, they sometimes inaccurately report events like games where it fills up well a bit late but it is reported like people don't care to show up at all. It is frustrating to deal with that kind of sloppy media coverage."

AJC: Atlanta fans are bad. As Atlanta fan 'Dr. Z' recently told the AJC, sometimes "people don't care to show up at all. It is frustrating to deal with." We at the AJC agree, Dr. Z. It is frustrating indeed.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Good job Z. Those cats ARE lazy. As much as people are dissatisfied with the Hawks lately, we ARE having one of our best seasons in franchise history. You wouldn't know it from them though.

It's like the blog last week about JJ going to NY. Schultz JUST did a blog on that around the All-Star break, so why does Bradley come back with one a few weeks later ( after he sees ESPN do a story on JJ and the Knicks )?

I forget which one it was, but they even had a pic of a red #6 Hawks jersey . . . with JAMES on the back ( as in Lebron James ) . . . talking about "dare to dream" or some ish.

Dream what? That Mario West will change his name to James? That Mike James gets signed by the Hawks, and pays Mario for his jersey number?

Because that's the only way a JAMES is going to end up on a back of a jersey. That JAMES won't be Lebron, that's for sure. They're too lazy to even try to understad our cap situation.

[jhay610]

They're too lazy to even try to understad our cap situation.

This is what kills me about our columnists. At least the beat writers understand the concept that the Hawks don't have the cap room to replace Joe, but our columnists (especially Bradley) can't be bothered to actually get a basic level grasp of where the Hawks are when it comes to their cap situation and free agency. The fact that they keep putting out this nonsense of getting a Bosh or a Wade or even a James is just mind-boggling to me. How does this keep getting published? They revel in ignorance when it comes to the CBA.

[HawkRock1123]

Congrats on getting interviewed though. That's awesome, and as a fan I appreciate what you said. It's the media's job to pump up fan support, in my opinion.

It's far more difficult to inspire a city to support their team than it is to complain about the team or the fans of that city.