The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

https://twitter.com/SteveIrvine04/status...1624088580

Quote:@SteveIrvine04
Was told on Monday that I was let go from 1819 News, effective May 31. Not an easy part of this profession but it is what it is. Will continue to work hard through the end of the month and then it's off to the next adventure. Cheers.

I will say, I am not a fan of 1819 News at all, but I always read Steve's articles and hopefully he lands somewhere soon. His articles are always great and informative.
Not sure where he would land since other larger sports sites have had layoffs as well (SBNation, Underdog Dynasty) and there aren't any other Alabama based news sites.

The penalty for writing positive articles about UAB in this state.

(05-02-2023 08:31 AM)BlazerFromMD Wrote:  The penalty for writing positive articles about UAB in this state.

The penalty for working for a new website that is targeted towards people who think Yellowhammer News is too liberal. It is economic.

1819 is trash but I would read irvines articles

They must be a sinking ship. Steve was the best one they had writing for them!

Man that sucks hard! I hope he gets picked up somewhere fast as he is a really good dude and always shot things straight. He is really the only real journalist that covers us. I know our fans are stepping up to fill in gaps, but Steve is it from a paid journalist perspective. Evan sometimes, but not consistent enough or timely enough

(05-02-2023 09:16 AM)jaymay2525 Wrote:  Man that sucks hard! I hope he gets picked up somewhere fast as he is a really good dude and always shot things straight. He is really the only real journalist that covers us. I know our fans are stepping up to fill in gaps, but Steve is it from a paid journalist perspective. Evan sometimes, but not consistent enough or timely enough

The paid journalist is all but dead. Steve just came around 25 years too late.

Maybe he'll be able to come back to BVP sometimes, and will have more candor than when he was the play-by-play person. He's probably the most connected media person for UAB at the moment, I definitely hope we don't lose him all together.

Staying on topic, Steve is pumping out something on UAB 2-3 times a day while covering all of the other G5 schools in the state. Have always been appreciative of him.

Yeah he does a great job putting on content for UAB.

When he was on BVP he was the Uber homer. It was kind of uncomfortable to listen to. Like almost to the level of If say you anything that doesn’t toe the bill Clark/UAB company line you are a sh!Ty fan level…

The discussion about the not going for it on 4th down at utsa was cringe worthy… and BC was almost universally crucified for it so it’s not like saying it was a bad decision was a crazy yahoo opinion…

Anyways, I appreciate his content and hope he finds a new home

Wow. I'd only read Irvine's articles through links here and hadn't looked through that site in at least a year. It seems weird to write this, but it really went downhill once Ray Melick retired. Looks like Irvine writes about half of their copy, and the "news" half is all by the same person who's not very good at her job.

"Opinion" seems to be whatever rando sent them a screed, and that's likely the story. They're not pushing an establishment-R agenda any more, which tells me that their conservative funding source has dried up. And without that, or any meaningful advertising, they're done. Irvine may not be the only one who got that message.

I was pulling for 1819 News until I heard this news. Irvine was the only reason I read 1819 News.

(05-02-2023 11:33 AM)Marathon Blazer Wrote:  I was pulling for 1819 News until I heard this news. Irvine was the only reason I read 1819 News.

Yep, me too.

In today's media landscape, I'm surprised the site lasted as long as it did. Someone flushed away a lot of money on this deal.

Sports coverage was just the sweetener to softpedal legitimacy to what is really a political operation funded by political operatives. Best guess is the sugar either wasn’t working in drawing eyeballs that converted to patrons, or that the main source of funding is drying up and/or directing that it all go to the political objectives.

This is no shot at Steve’s work or anyone else doing sports coverage there, just that there was always a risk of this happening when your funding doesn’t actually care about that part of the production.

AK blasted 1819 in a reply post

(05-02-2023 08:52 AM)The Answer UAB Wrote:  1819 is trash but I would read irvines articles

This. I looked it over once. They never got another page view out of me that wasn't one of Steve's articles.

A politically focused “news” site probably isn’t going to draw a lot of people looking for sports content.

I honestly didn't even realize it was a full news site. I thought it was just Irvine's place to post his articles

(05-02-2023 03:20 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  

(05-02-2023 08:52 AM)The Answer UAB Wrote:  1819 is trash but I would read irvines articles

This. I looked it over once. They never got another page view out of me that wasn't one of Steve's articles.

Every article was about heroic school moms defending their children from woke, leftist, marxist, communist, woke mind virus infected, drag-dressing groomers by banning books and giving them AR-15s.