Equal Time

J. Hutcherson of The Soccer Daily and US Soccer Players (and Round Not Oval, and ECG, and a ton of other legit writing credits) popped in over at the comments to a post I wrote in September. In "Laborious Reading" I voiced my displeasure at what I felt was an attempt to take the Copa Sudamericana loss and turn it into a symbol for all that is wrong with MLS management. In the process, I ended up calling US Soccer Players a "propoganda tool." Despite my hystrionics, Hutcherson's comment is a reasonable rebuttal to what I wrote, and he defends the honor of his site well. He says:

There's bias everywhere. Newspapers own teams they cover. While I'm not about to pretend that USSoccerPlayers is totally objective, it's also not a propaganda machine.

Personally, I'm more concerned when I'm involved enough in a story to know all sides and then I read what makes it onto websites and into papers... When reading anything, look for the bias. It's almost always there.

And, you know something? He's right. At the time, I was still heartbroken from the Sudamericana loss, and probably not thinking as rationally as I should have been. Which is fine from a blogging perspective, but it was unfair to US Soccer Players, which is really a top quality site. I stand by my feelings about the articles that I felt were trying to take advantage of one game as a symbol for all that is wrong with MLS. That was tacky. And I still stand by my opinion (which is close to tautology) that I recommend reading anything written out here with a critical eye. But I regret tarring US Soccer Players with an overbroad generalization and implying that it was pretty much the Pravda of the USNSTPA.

Strangely, I had forgotten all about this article until now. Thanks for showing up to the party when you did J, I have a clearer head about it now, and a chance to set something right.