Cheap shots

By Joel Thurtell

Frequent criticism of gaffes, journalistic lapses and other oddities at the Detroit Free Press is wrong — it’s taking “cheap shots” at a newspaper in its death agony.

So I was told by a former Freepster.

Now who would take cheap shots at the Free Press?

Okay, joelontheroad.com nails his alma mater regularly.

But “cheap”?

Is it “cheap” to criticize Michigan’s largest and oldest daily newspaper?

Only if it’s “cheap” for the Freep to express its own views editorially.

Of course, we wouldn’t want to be unfair to the Freepsters.

But which of joelontheroad’s critiques of the Free Press have been below the belt?

Was it wrong to report JOTR’s own victory in a labor arbitration wherein Free Press management labeled him “unethical” for exercising his rights as a citizen?

Is it “cheap” to point out that this supposedly dying institution still — even helping to engineer his ouster — takes daily pot shots at a mayor who’s on his way to a jail cell? I’m thinking of today’s sarcastic Tom Walsh column among myriad similar pilings-on. Those rounds of newspaper ammo carry far more wallop than any petard launched by this meager website.

Should JOTR keep silent when it’s evident this statewide-circulating newspaper with its motto of “on guard” had its own ax to grind, its own internal motives (Pulitzer 24/7) for wanting to depose Detroit’s mayor?

Is it somehow unfair for a publication with a part-time staff of one somewhat Web-unsavvy writer armed with a simple blog occasionally to monitor the self-appointed monitor of public virtue?

“On guard,” indeed.

Who will keep watch over the journalistic “guard,” if not joelontheroad.com?

Cheap shots, my ass.

The Free Press is still a vigorous institution, and it’s using its power of propaganda to pave the road it wants Michiganders and Detroiters to follow.

Nobody elected a newspaper to be the avatar of public rectitude.

We could use more “cheap shots” aimed at this bully-boy paper.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com