Creepy Catholic football coach canned

Longtime and successful coach at Catholic high school was abruptly shit-canned. It raised eyebrows because no reason was given, the coach's son was also given the boot and the principal's husband was handed the job.
Turns out there was a pretty reason the guy got canned.

He prolly shoulda been caught years ago.

http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20120920/LOCAL/309209907

 

Saw this on the topic this morning on my facebook feed written by an anchor, and I think news director, of a local TV station. They felt the need to explain why they weren't first to break this story. Not sure what I think about it, other than to think you shouldn't have to explain your decisions like this unless you are whoring out to viewers and realizing you got beat . . . taking a low-blow approach to outlet who beat you on the story.

 

I saw this last week on Yahoo or Rivals and the guy who wrote it took the angle of the coach and his son being fired and the principal's husband being handed the job.

 

This is interesting, because I know the topic is very sensitive. I don't necessarily have a problem with choosing to run with a story or not run with a story, based on the circumstances. But I DO have a problem with deciding to not run it first, then react to those saying you "got scooped" by writing you did have it first, but had higher ethics than the other guys.

Some of the stories we cover come with a risk-reward clause. The sensitive stories are ones we all pause a bit to make sure we get it right. I get that. The other TV outlet decided to run with it to be first. That's a risk they took. I hope it was a more calculated risk than just rolling the dice to get it first, but that's the risk-reward part of the equation. If they are right, they win this battle . . . at least for a few minutes until everyone gets the story. If they guess wrong, well, they have their own consequences.

 

But the consequences are always worse for the person wrongly accused in a situation like this (and I'm not saying this guy is wrongly accused). That person never fully recovers his/her reputation.

That said, it was a dick move on the part of the TV station to accuse its competitor of lower ethics to explain why they got their ass beat. Not surprising though.

 

Sorry, I forgot to post the link.

http://indiana.onpolitix.com/news/158268/why-we-held-off-on-part-of-the-lindsay-story

And, to be fair, they really didn't accuse anyone of anything. But by writing this story, you are saying your ethics were higher than those who chose to run with it. I think you should just leave it alone. It all comes across as explaining yourself and pumping your ethics up.

 

This graf-and-a-half is somewhat comical.

But the question was left lingering: Just why was Coach Lindsay fired? Officials wouldn’t give a specific answer. They just said he was being let go for inappropriate behavior violating the standards of the school and the Catholic church.

On Tuesday, we were tipped off that there was a police report from August 2011 in which a father at a local pool expressed concern that Lindsay had been taking photographs of his daughter.

Ok, so a long-time and successful high school coach is canned during the season with no explanation beyond "inappropriate behavior" and your station's only reaction is "huh, that's odd, I wonder what the behavior was?"

And the only reason you look into police reports is because somebody tipped you off? Uh, if you're really investigating this shouldn't reviewing police reports be the first thing on your to-do list?

 

Just talked with a colleague about this. We both find it funny that the phrase "(news-operation) has uncovered documents" roughly translates to "We just got a fax, just like all the other media outlets." I guess we kind of do it too at times, but it's still funny.