Joe Schad

Joe is a big boy, ya dig? I'm sure he can take it like a man.

 

So you're the exclusion to the rule. Congratulations. Chip Brown's reporting this week has not only excited me about football, it's made me want to write sports again.

 

In this case its certainly not. Anonymous sources seem to make more news than identified sources anymore. Its getting ridiculous. Even with the Cavs-Izzo situation, no one really knows what the offer really is or when he is going to actually decide despite reports of both from anonymous sources that no one will confirm.
Its partly because of the internet, but the competition to break things sooner has put anonymous and not-so credible sources into top headlines every day.

 

Chip's connections to Texas aside, it's a hell of a day for him, and a hell of a headache for the folks in the grand ol' state of Nebraska, when a Texas reporter is the one who breaks the news of the Cornhuskers to the Big Ten.

 

I'm not sure he did that. It had been rumored for weeks.

He did break the Pac-10's interest in the six Big 12 teams which was huge. He did break the Big 12 staying together (kind of) which no one else was even close on.

Good week for Brown, no question about it.

 

For what it's worth, which may not be much, my sister's boyfriend went to St. John's when Joe Schad was going there and he's told me some not-so-flattering stories about him. Apparently, Schad must have some talent or ESPN.com wouldn't have hired him, and he must not be a complete tool if he has the Moddy seal. I'm just saying that like every story, there are two sides.

 

Most eager/good college journalists I have ever known have rubbed people the wrong way. And sometimes been assholes.

 

These threads make me laugh.
Do we really think anybody (outside the business) who's been trying to follow this whole convoluted mess knows or cares who broke what and who was right or wrong on what parts of the story.
The concern over who broke a story is inside business bullshit...especially when "breaking" a story can mean tweeting to your 200 followers five minutes before it appears on some other web site.

 

No telling how many subscribers orangebloods picked up as a result of all this. Suspect the number is in the hundreds, if not over 1,000. Whatever that number is, it towers over the number of subscribers he lost because he got a couple of things wrong.
For that reason, Brown is dancing in the streets no matter what anyone thinks of his track record. And being out front with news unquestionably drew him revenue.
I wouldn't exactly say he batted .850 or .900 when at one point he declared a BCS Conference "dead" that turned out to be very much alive. That alone, other smaller gaffs aside, is like failing an exam that weighs heavily on the grade. But the guy closed the door by getting the last story (the Big 12 salvation) right. And like it or not, the attention span of the public is so short these days that you're pretty much remembered for the last thing you write on ongoing stories like this. He hit a home run in the 9th, so nobody will remember the error in the 5th or that a sign was missed in the 7th.

 

I'd sincerely value your opinion, sp, on what you do think is worthy of praise.
I'd be interested in your take.

 

Never said it wasn't worthy or some attention/credit. Just said most people outside the business couldn't care less.

And my take is you are an idiot.

 

I think it's worth pointing out -- and I do realize that many discussing this issue on here already know this, but it's still worth pointing out -- that Chip Brown is no website homer, but a well-respected journalist who used to cover Texas (and the Cowboys for while, if I recall) first for for AP, then the DMN. He won his share of awards in the process and, as far as I can tell, is a prime example of the fan sites hiring away "serious" journalists.

Given that, I think it's a huge assumption by some that he simply allowed himself to be Texas' mouthpiece. Perhaps that was true at the end of the day. But I'd like to think that somebody with his background used a fair amount of journalistic discretion before he ran anything. I really don't know Chip Brown at all. But I do know, fairly early in the genesis of this story, I figured out that his stuff seemed to prove to be more accurate and well-informed than the other noise out there. By the time Monday afternoon rolled around and he beat ESPN on this story, it had gotten to the point where I had pretty much started going to this Texas fan site for updates on this story almost exclusively, and not because I give a shit about Texas.

He was on top of it from the beginning. If it's because he had access to people at Texas who are in the know, so be it. I think he used that access wisely to kick the competition's ass. End of story.