Saban comments

I'm pretty sure Saban trusted a print guy (several, actually) to keep his comments private and got burned as a result. I'm not feeling sorry for Saban, and I'm not putting this all on Darlington, but to make this a "broadcast media can't be trusted" issue is absurd.

 

mizzoo

sorry, bud, but you're waaaaay off on this one, imo. trading off-the-record tales over a beer with other scribes is one thing. sending someone in the radio biz a copy of the interview recording is something else entirely.

jeff was scorched by someone he trusted. that only matters to us. most importantly, jeff screwed over a subject who trusted him enough to go off-the-record.

shame on him. what he did is not only indefensible, but also unimaginable. why ever give someone with a radio show a tape including off-the-record material? he deserves to be whacked simply on the grounds of stupidity.

 

Saban doesn't trust ANY media, except for the two or three trained poodles he tucks into his pocket at every stop on his long and winding road, to whom he then issues his homespun folksy anectdotes about what dimwit dumbass yokels they were at the other places he worked, always sabotaging his brilliant coaching efforts with their obtuse obstructionism (usually by not instantly giving him a huge new contract with all the money he wanted), and how any sane person would have bolted the joint, he's just a simple friendly humble man who just wants to coach football, and of course, it had nothing, nothing whatsoever, to do with Money.

 

You guys are msissing the point. It's the Mizzougrad doctrine of selective ethics.

Guy I say is a fuckin' stud= 5% blame
Scumbag talk radio guy = 95% blame

Because we all know fuckin' studs are entitled and talk radio guys are all scum.

Fireable offense. Probably not. Worthy of discipline, yes. Darlington mostly to blame...absolutely.

 

Now, if it'd been Jemele Hill who sent the audio to the radio guy...

 

I completely agree with Mizzougrad. I've been in this business for decades and I've lost count of the times that another writer has played me tape of a meltdown that a coach or AD left on their voice mail. It happens all the time.

I've met a lot of young punks over the years and I met Jeff when he was covering Florida, Darlington is one of the nicest, most professional, aggressive reporters around. He epitomizes everything you want to see in a young reporter.

Darlington is the victim here. He's not blameless, but anyone who suggests that he should be fired doesn't know what they're talking about.

 

Not saying he should be fired. Never met JD, don't know him from a ham sandwich, only know him by his work, which is very good. I have no ill will toward him, and have no reason to. I wish I had his job and worked for that paper. Certainly don't hate or have any jealousy because of it. Not my style.

But, given this situation, the circumstances and his involvement, I'd have to imagine he faces discipline of some sort.

No way he should be fired for it, though.

At the same time, there's a difference between playing you tape of a meltdown, and e-mailing you your own copy which you might be tempted to send to someone else, and so on.

 

i can back off my intitial reaction that it should cost jeff his job. but he should be disciplined substantially. he's totally at fault. playing a tape for a friend's amusement is one thing we've probably all done.

but sending an electronic media person a copy of the taped interview you conducted with someone is just stupid beyond comprehension. it's really hard to fathom how golden-boy jeff could have done this under any circumstances.

i, too, have been in the biz forever. this episode is simply incredible to me. so are the defenses of jeff.

 

Fucking savages? No, Mizzougrad, Darlington violated the trust of a source. I don't think you can put it any simpler than that.

It's indefensible, really, and the Herald is only making it worse by rationalizing it. If you really did graduate from Mizzou in 1996, Mizzougrad, that makes me somewhat older than you. I have solid credentials. Like others, I've worked hard to accomplish the things I've accomplished; no one has given me anything. I'm not Crusader Rabbit -- I know there are lots of gray areas in this business -- but this one is clear.

To suggest that everyone does this at one point or another, and that the radio scumbag betrayed Darlington's trust, is to miss the point by a million miles. Saban told him the story, or gave the reporters the entire interview (I can't really tell), under the condition that it remain private.

The moment he e-mailed the interview to the radio person, even if he was just passing it along for entertainment, he violated that trust. I'd bet that Darlington thought it wouldn't get as much attention as it has, but it did, and I'd also bet that he's pretty damn sorry he passed it to anyone.

Beyond that, Darlington knew exactly what he had -- a coach who is vilified in Miami making a derogatory, if not necessarily racist, remark. Saban has more important things to worry about, but you can be damn sure that he's not going to be saying, "And this is off the record," in an interview any time soon.

 

You people. You kill me. Here's a young guy who's probably in most cases better than you, farther ahead than you, and clearly more well-known than you. And here's your chance to take him down a peg, so you take it. What a bunch of losers. Darlington made a mistake, but it's the kind of mistake a LOT of you -- us -- might have made. That tape had some gold on it, and my guess is Jeff was sharing it with a friend from the radio station with no intention of it ever getting out. You people. Unbelievable.

 

someone needs to take a chill pill, no?

 

On an anonymous, industry message board. I think we can slow down on the hysterical cries of outrage. You're both right, but it's not like someone is breaking the windows to his car or pissing under his desk. They're pointing out that what he did hurts the credibility of all journalists. And that's true. Every time any one of us fucks up, it hurts us all. It's the nature of the beast. But, you're both right, he didn't do anything exceedingly wrong — just wrong. No more, no less.