Herald Hits Delete On FIU Sportswriter's Exit Rant

In the long and marvelous history of sport's public kiss-off screeds, Pete Pelegrin's won't match the national spectacle of Al Davis' press conference takedown of Lane Kiffin. It won't touch the universal clamor over Dan Gilbert's Comic Sans swipe at LeBron James. Nor will it come close to prompting the public recoil Michael Jordan did with his hate-filled Hall of Fame speech.

But that doesn't mean it isn't just as good, it just means fewer people care about FIU sports.

And according to Pete Pelegrin, no one actively cares less more than the Miami Herald -- at least until the paper swiftly removed his final story accusing them of not playing fair when it comes to coverage of the Golden Panthers.

(His post has been saved in a very readable image form here.)

"I am getting out of the newspaper business altogether," Pelegrin wrote on the Herald's Panthers Prowl blog. "...Before I go, I want to verify what you good people have long suspected of this paper's coverage of FIU sports."

Pelegrin, who worked the FIU beat for nine years to a relatively small but devoted audience, then did the following, in tones of varying degree:

• Inferred sports editor Jorge Rojas is a liar.
• Confirmed the paper didn't send him to the Sun Belt baseball tournament, where even ESPN was monitoring Garret Wittel's record hitting streak, though he did cover the story.
• Referred to the blog's new logo as hokey (DESIGN BURN!).
• Claimed the Herald relegated a planned front-page story on FIU's Sun Belt Freshman of the Year Freddy Asprilla so it could offset a negative front-page story about a Hurricanes basketball player with a minor story about another UM bench player.
• Told how his story on the retirement of 32-year media relations director Rich Kelch was removed from print on principle even though the paper had run a front-page article about a UM football secretary the year before.
• Pointed out unanswered questions and factual slips in an article about FIU's student fees painted an unfairly negative picture of FIU while unnecessarily comparing it to UM.
• Passed out the contact info of the Herald's publisher, executive editor, managing editor, and sports editor to fans.
• Posted an image of a Herald advertising banner hung at UM's baseball field, implications clear.

That about sums it up, complete with a few words about the Herald's cost-cutting measures and corporations in general. In sports terms, he gave the proverbial 110%. We might even call him "scrappy."

Will it mean anything? Maybe. Some of Pelegrin's expectations of the Herald in light of today's changing media climate are not realistic, but though FIU will always play second fiddle to the long-beloved Hurricanes and Dolphins and Heat, troubling bias is still troubling bias. 

Or not.

"Pete's blog was a sad diatribe by an embittered former employee," the Herald's Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal told NBCMiami. "The changes we made several months ago were for the very purpose of improving our coverage of FIU as the university gains strengths across its programs. Pete didn't agree with the changes, and everything that he says has to be read in that light. This blog is not a good reflection on him, and it's utterly unfair to those he worked with for many years.'' 

We suppose above all, posting a takedown on one's own target with a spectacularly disregarded URL like "hfkjdshfdkjsfhd.html" is hilarious, and the lesson to take away is never anger Pete Pelegrin, former journalist. At least not while he can still log in to one's publishing software.

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