Pitchfork Journalism

As many know, Gregg Doyel has a vibrant dialogue with readers who don't like him; this week, it's detractors of his coverage of the Sandusky scandal.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/16145281/hate-mail-whatever-follows-here-its-not-about-the-school

<b>From: Kevin

No, Gregg, calling off Paterno's weekly press conference was the right thing to do. In case you missed it, the media's lack of ethics and integrity regarding this issue has been disturbing. One day, entire seminars will be dedicated to the mob-like mentality and misconduct shown by the media during this episode.

<i>Maybe so. But that mob got that coach fired, with me holding a pitchfork. Whatever else anyone says, I can take it.</i></b>

 

Doyel also joined in the, "The healing has begun!!!111!!!" chorus the day after the Nebraska game. He laid down his pitchfork for a candle.

 

It's hard to say which person in that dialogue exhibited the deepest psychological issues and least contact with reality.

 

Gregg Doyel has been an embarrassment the past two weeks. The whole episode (not just Doyel) makes me wonder what the Twitter universe would have been like if it had been full force during the Duke lacrosse case.

 

Again, I'm amazed at people becoming drooling and raging over people holding candlelight vigils. And Doyel is a columnist. His tweet seems unprofessional, but it's not the same as having the Patriot-News reporting star tweet in that way

 

I never do this, for good reason, and I'll probably regret it in about 30 minutes, but ...

Gregg Doyel has absolutely kicked ass the past 10 days, and frankly in the months before that, is still being judged by some for the old days ("I'll fight you in the press box"), but I would take him in a heartbeat to be my national voice if I ever left this place.

We can debate that throwaway mailbag question and answer all day -- it gave me pause -- but he has been doing great work, and whatever you think of contests, there's a very good reason he was second in the APSE big columns behind Sally Jenkins for 2010. It's because he's damn good, writes the right length for his audience (not tomes, but columns), has strong opinions and lays out good cases to back them up.

I'm extremely prejudiced, but I also think I'm right.

 

I have been a strong critic of Doyel in the past, but SF_Express is correct. From where I sit, though -- only by reading the writer, because I do not know him -- it seemed that he himself chose to avoid the immature back-and-forth and uncontrolled rage and instead channel it into dogged reporting and concise writing. Not that he wasn't doing the reporting before, but he had removed the "speak first, think later" from his game.

This tweet is, unfortunately, a reminder of what he had seemingly outgrown. EDIT: OK I guess it wasn't a tweet but a mailbag column.

 

Egomania and being a good columnist are not necessarily incompatible. There's probably a better argument to be made that the former is close to a job requirement. But it's never pleasant to watch an ego on the loose.

 

TeamBud, is that you?

 

He channeled all the impulsiveness and back-and-forth and half-baked thinking and half-cocked rumor transmission onto his Twitter feed. Yesterday was the day - he heard - they were going to take down the Paterno statue, for example.

 

Well, shit, what else is Twitter for?

 

Makes for an interesting discussion, though. Like the one we were having on the Pos bio thread: how much of a writer's process does a writer want to give away via social media? And how much does the reader want/need to know?