Sports

Dan Snyder Has Been Buying Off The Media, And I Want My Cut

Seth Richardson Contributor
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Dan Snyder is paying off Washington, D.C. media outlets, and I haven’t been offered a penny.

Dave McKenna wrote the exposé Tuesday on Deadspin with all the lurid details. From Snyder snubbing media outlets that bad-mouthed the team to trying to set up his own news agency to flat-out bypass everyone else to the announcement that the Washington Times was now a partner of the Redskins in marketing and content, the piece pretty well sums up Snyder’s attempt to control the flow of information.

“He came into ownership with an if-you-can’t-beat-’em-buy-’em approach to media relations,” McKenna writes in the article.

It details Snyder’s attempt since his purchase of the Redskins in 1999 to micromanage media outlets covering the team. Basically, anyone who crosses Snyder in even the slightest is blacklisted.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Snyder is basically Darth Vader with orthopedic sneakers at this point. Does he even care about offending the fans — or anyone else for that matter — anymore?

Of course not. He’s Dan Snyder, and Dan Snyder does what Dan Snyder wants to do. I mean, he’s selling a T-shirt commemorating practice. Even the Redskins team store said my piece calling their shirt stupid was a “good article.”

 

 

I guess there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

But what’s most troubling isn’t that an anti-social billionaire is buying off the media. No, that barely scrapes the surface. What is the most troubling is that he hasn’t even made me an offer.

So Dan Snyder thinks he can just come into D.C. and not pay me? The Daily Caller gets more traffic than the Washington Times. I’ve seen “Goodfellas.” I know how this works. I’m not some newbie to the sports game. The Daily Caller’s softball team is undefeated. We’re kind of a big deal. I’m perfectly willing to give up my journalistic integrity for a dollar in the same way the Times did. That whole objective news thing isn’t really relevant now anyway.

And realistically, what’s the worst that could happen with having a much-hated team owner control the content published in your outlet? Like the Times won’t be able to cover hard-hitting news about the Redskins? Well, actually, they probably won’t. But who cares, paycheck. Must be all that matters to them anyway.

Now pony up, Dan. I’ve got bills.

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