Okie State "streamlines" access for media

Well, yes and no. We're dealing with teenagers quite often, not corporate executives. They say stuff lots of times without ever stopping to think about the fallout. I've honestly never gone into an interview or sat down to write a story with the INTENTION of embarrassing someone. A few times it comes out that way.

Now, I'm certainly not saying you should never report anything critical or controversial. Not at all. But I think it's a bit unethical to take something someone says and twist it into an alternate meaning just to manufacture drama.

If backup QB Smith says he wants to start next week, is that simply a normal competitive instinct? Or is he back-stabbing the coach and current starter? It's all in the context.

 

Twisting quotes isn't what you said earlier. You talked about a reporter using "what the subject thought was small talk." Those are two very different things.

 

It was like the Johnny Manziel "I can't wait to get out of College Station" story that came up last summer. Kid wasn't talking serious, on-the-record stuff in any way. Never would have run that, much less made it into some "Manziel hates Aggieland" type of stories.

I once had a kid conclude an interview with the line "I gotta go get wasted". Was I going to use that? Not a chance.

 

To be fair, Manziel posted that on Twitter, not telling that on or off the record to a reporter. Can't fault a reporter for running with what Manziel put in public.

 

It's impossible to read tone into tweets, so something that might have been sent in a moment of frustration is now out there for everyone to see...

That's just the reality of it.

 

Once again, boys and girls, stay away from Twitter. Nothing good will come of it.

I mean how many of us have stupid shit at one time or another in our lives? Aren't we glad it didn't get posted for the entire world to read?

 

How many times? Who are we kidding? Not that many.

The idea of the coach having to spend "all season" cleaning up a media mess is another fallacy. Maybe in the SID's mind it seems that way.

The best SIDs are the ones who get you the access you need, have a good sense of humor and get over things lightning quick. Because that helps the coach get over it. Too many SIDs today are high-strung and prone to making much ado over very little.

 

Yes, it is. And college beat reporters rarely abuse this in the way you're suggesting. I mean, *rarely.*

 

Alma, SIDs get that way because coaches make sure athletic departments hire SIDs they know they can browbeat into being extensions of their own paranoid personalities.

 

Michael,

I would say that SIDs get that way because they have seen too many of their friends and colleagues get demoted or fired because they didn't do exactly what the coach wanted.

 

That's what I mean. They serve at the pleasure of paranoid control freaks who are almost all total assholes as bosses. I perhaps didn't phrase that as felicitously as I wished, but it's same sentiment. Once upon a time, a time when I covered college sports, SIDs were longstanding school employees who'd seen many coaches come and go, and whose loyalty was understood to be to the institution, not the temporary asshole with the clipboard and whistle.

 

Yep. Exactly. Ditched that line of work because I couldn't be an apologist for coaches.