By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
January 9, 2014
[Editor’s Note: After a one-year hiatus, the DSR has revived our year-end awards given out to the Detroit Media. Instead of one long article presenting all of the recipients at once, we will be rolling these out over the next few days. And yes, the Raggie Trophy is a Detroit snow globe, a “Made in Detroit” coffee cozy and one of Moss’s wife’s unused tampons.]
Best Detroit Sports Columnist
John Niyo — Detroit News
When I was growing up, there weren’t many options if you wanted to read about sports. Locally, you basically had the Freep and the News; nationally, you had Sports Illustrated.
Of course, over the last decade or so, those outlets have become less relevant due to the fact that traditional publications have struggled mightily in the transition to the Digital Age. The local papers are a shell of what they once were and Sports Illustrated has almost been rendered irrelevant.
And while these periodicals haven’t figured out how to properly monetize in the Internet Era, they have also made mistake after mistake, causing their readers to look elsewhere.
You don’t have to look much further than Sports Illustrated’s awful decision to hire Michael Rosenberg away from the Free Press and the Detroit paper’s decision to replace him with Jeff Seidel for proof that these once-great entities have no fucking clue what they are doing.
In an era where CONTENT is king, SI made the brilliant decision to hire Shecky RosenNebbish, while a Homeless Man’s Dave Barry — without much of a sports background — replaced him.
(Thanks to DSR contributor Brian Richard Coburn, we may have figured out how Seidel got that gig. Mitch Albom thanked Seidel in his hilariously naive “Fab Five” book, which was published almost 21 years ago now. I have been told that higher-ups at the paper got Seidel the job over sports editor Gene Myers’ objections. I am guessing that the “higher-up” was Frodo Albom. Although “higher” and Albom usually don’t mix. Maybe he was in a booster seat when he made the recommendation.)
You’d think that when faced with intense competition, these papers and magazines would reward excellence instead of mediocrity (or worse), but they don’t. Which leads us to the winner of the last Raggie to be presented for 2013.
If anyone in Detroit deserved the shot at national prominence that RosenDweeb received, it was Detroit News columnist John Niyo. But, not only did Niyo not get that gig, he can’t even get promoted by his current employer.
Seriously, Niyo is BY FAR the best sports journalist in Detroit. The chasm between him and whomever else you want to nominate for second place is of Grand Canyon proportions.
As I wrote back in June of this year, Niyo even working in the same department as many of those brain-dead jerkoffs is like if Daniel Day-Lewis were performing in your child’s middle school production of “Inherit the Wind.”
From his bombing of the Pistons to his bombing of Jim Schwartz to his bombing of Prince Fielder ….. hell, John McCain thinks Niyo has an itchy trigger finger.
(He did wait WAY too long to bury Schwartz, and while he is the only person in the Detroit media to be critical of Kenny Holland, I am still waiting for a double-barrel attack on that overrated clown.)
And unlike Drew Sharp, Niyo doesn’t rip simply to troll Detroit sports fans. He does it in the name of accountability.
Unfortunately, the News editors don’t even realize what they have in Niyo. Instead of promoting this guy and giving him the plum assignments, they make him play second-fiddle to a guy (Bob Wojnowski) who almost acknowledges that he is mailing it in at this point.
The News should make Niyo’s column the prominent commentary on everything local — Lions games,Tigers postseason contests, Red Wings playoff games and Pistons head coaching hires. He should be the top banana at that paper as even Wojo himself has to know he isn’t as good as Niyo is.
Instead, his editors send him to the Olympics. Who gives a shit about the Olympics? Well, other than women.
And they should splash his pieces on the front page of the website. Instead, half the time you have to navigate the paper’s website in order to find for his work. Hell, that pedophile-looking motherfucker Kurt Mensching’s Tigers blog seems to get more exposure than some of Niyo’s columns.
You want to know how obscure Niyo is? The dude won two Raggies this year. One for “Best Columnist” and the other for “Best Column of the Year.” Because there is only ONE picture of the guy on Google Images, I had to use a photo of Phil Ivey for his other award!!!!!! Are you fucking kidding me? And if he would have won Best Twitter Account. I would have had to post a pic of Tiger Woods.
The next time I see Niyo, I am going to have to take a picture of him MYSELF just to prepare for the 2014 Raggies (where he is already the heavy favorite for “Column of the Year” with this decimation of the Pistons from Monday).
(And yes, I am stealing some jokes from that June piece on Niyo, but give me a break, I don’t have a lot of practice when it comes to saying nice things about people.)
So there you have it. The DSR’s version of “Best Picture” goes to Niyo, which FINALLY ends our roll-out of the Raggies.
But stay tuned for the site’s second Tournament of 64 WORST Detroit Sports Media Personalities; the opening rounds will begin later this month. And we already have a creative way to fellate Niyo when they commence.
Now, start following me on Twitter again, ya ungrateful bastard.
@JeffMossDSR you. tweet. too. much. and angrily so.
— John Niyo (@JohnNiyo) January 1, 2014
Honorable Mention: Nobody
Best Sports Talk Radio Show — “The Discussion” with Matt Dery
Worst Sports Talk Radio Show — “The Drew Lane Show”
Best Local TV Anchor — Lindsey Hayes — Fox Sports Detroit
Best Media Twitter Account — Tony Paul — @TonyPaul1984
Worst Media Twitter Account — TIE (@TerryFoster971 and @VGoodwill)
Worst Article/Column of the Year — Pat Caputo — Oakland Press
Best Article/Column of the Year — John Niyo — Detroit News
Best TV Broadcast Team – George Blaha and Greg Kelser — Fox Sports Detroit
Worst TV Broadcast Team – Mario Impemba and Rod Allen — Fox Sports Detroit
Best Radio Broadcast Team – Dan Miller and Jim Brandstatter — 97.1
Worst Radio Broadcast Team – Dan Dickerson and Jim Price — 97.1 Best Beat Writer – David Mayo — MLive.com
Worst Beat Writer – John Lowe — Detroit Free Press
Worst Columnist – Jeff Seidel — Detroit Free Press
Worst Media-Related Restaurant Disaster – Coming Soon
The Jamie Samuelsen Award – Jamie Samuelsen — 97.1 and Detroit Free Press
Craig Monroe Memorial Award — Bill Shea — Crain’s Detroit
Best Columnist – John Niyo — Detroit News