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The Hartford Courant has enough $$$ to pay Auriemma's kid to BLOG about his team

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by BYH, Sep 10, 2009.

  1. BYH

    BYH Active Member

    Jumping Christ, this is so insulting on so many levels.

    http://www.newsday.com/sports/basketball/uconn-coach-s-daughter-hired-to-cover-his-team-1.1434425

    Never mind the obvious journalistic red flags (good news though: Auriemma's kid is going to clear up the "false press" about Daddy!). How furious would you be today if you were an ex-Courant writer, to learn the paper is going to pay someone w/minimal writing experience $125 PER BLOG to write about her daddy's team?

    Sometimes I really wonder if a mercy killing for the paper would be better than what it's enduring right now.
     
  2. JBHawkEye

    JBHawkEye Well-Known Member

    So the Hartford Courant fires its consumer reporter for accurately, but negatively, reporting on advertisers, but now hires the coach's daughter to write about her dad's team?

    You're right, it is insulting on many, many levels.
     
  3. SportsGuyBCK

    SportsGuyBCK Active Member

    Big-time insulting ... they're only willing (and I speak from past experience) to pay freelancers $75 per story ... guess I better ask for an increase the next time they come calling ... :)

    EDIT: Well, guess they're having second thoughts ... from the AP wire ...

    Courant ’re-evaluating’ role of coach’s daughter
    HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The Hartford Courant says it is re-evaluating its plan to have Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma’s daughter write a blog about the team.
    The newspaper’s sports editor, Jeff Otterbein, says he hired Alysa Auriemma to give an insider’s viewpoint about her father and the team on monthly blog postings during the upcoming basketball season. Otterbein says the younger Auriemma would be paid $125 per article.
    The arrangement has been criticized by a media ethics expert and journalists, who call Auriemma’s role a conflict of interest for the state’s largest daily newspaper.
    Otterbein says he at first considered the blog “a slice of something they could not get elsewhere.” He says the newspaper is reconsidering the relationship and is asking readers for their opinions.
     
  4. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Oh boy, the fanbois get to post their opinions!
     
  5. WriteThinking

    WriteThinking Well-Known Member

    Asking readers for their opinions is not the right way to go about this, because readers don't/won't care.

    This "insider's viewpoint"/celebrity/name blogging/personal connection/"something you can't get anywhere else" type stuff is the way things are going, and is all part of the recent trend in which anybody blogs/reports/writes, and can do so. It is why we are losing our value.

    Newspapers used to do things you couldn't get anywhere else as a matter of course. It was the nature of the beast, especially when done well. That's why TV and radio people and bloggers relied on them, and often, still do.

    Now, because of encroachment and an abandonment of what newspapers do best, they are reaching for the "things you could not get elsewhere." This is part of it -- all part of the breakdown of journalism as we know it.

    I wonder what John Altavilla, the paper's Connecticut women's basketball beat writer, thinks of this. Apparently, Auriemma's daughter's work was to be included in his blog, once a month.

    http://blogs.courant.com/uconn_womens_basketball/
     
  6. 30

    30 Member

    Dear Write Thinking...
    Actually, Altavilla is the one who set this up. Looks to me this was not intended for newspaper print, and was a blog exchange.


    Courant Sports Editor Jeff Otterbein On Alysa Auriemma

    By Jeff Otterbein on September 9, 2009 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (35)
    A note from Hartford Courant sports editor Jeff Otterbein:

    The plan was for Alysa Auriemma, daughter of UConn women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma, to offer her insights as a celebrity blogger once a month on UConn beat writer John Altavilla's blog. He would contribute to her blog, thus giving both web audiences a unique view.

    That raised questions Wednesday when The Associated Press reported that Alysa Auriemma has been hired by The Courant to help cover the six-time national championship team, and AP questioned the ethics.

    The Courant never expected that Auriemma could or would cover the team as a reporter. The first two online exchanges were in a question-and-answer form. A future format had not been decided. In the beginning there was no discussion of payment but when Alysa Auriemma asked, I thought it fair to pay her $125 for each installment on the website, an amount we routinely pay a freelancer. I thought that if she took the time she should be compensated.

    The intent was never to curry favor with Geno Auriemma. We have had our battles over the years and fully expect to have more when we write something he disagrees with. In fact, in my 20 years as sports editor, we have weathered major disagreements with Auriemma, UConn men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun and UConn football coach Randy Edsall. It's the nature of the business.

    I expected Alysa Auriemma would offer her unique observations online monthly about the team and her life as the daughter of the coach. I knew full well she would not write anything controversial about her father. That is for us to do. I knew full well she would provide no breaking news. That is our job.

    After the UConn women won the national title in April, I asked Geno Auriemma if he would write for us on that experience. He said yes. There was no money involved. Geno later said he thought a better idea was to have Alysa write the story. I agreed, figuring that Courant readers would enjoy her unique perspective and memories of the season. She was not paid.

    The question remains if paying the daughter of the coach to contribute to the website is a sound decision. I thought we were giving the UConn fans a slice of something they could not get elsewhere - a unique view, an entertaining view. We will re-evaluate the relationship going forward and are interested in our readers' opinions.

    We'd like to hear your thoughts, so please comment below.
     
  7. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    Maybe if she got a real college degree, she wouldn't have to whore herself out to the Courant. And her take on the team might have been original when she was a kid, but now she is a grown-up who is still living off of daddy.
     
  8. goalmouth

    goalmouth Well-Known Member

    "The arrangement has been criticized by a media ethics expert and journalists, who call Auriemma’s role a conflict of interest for the state’s largest daily newspaper."

    Please. Many readers, with scores more outlets of available information, have flatly rejected newspapers and their role as gate-keepers of the news. This is one tiny piece of the new paradigm for papers, get used to it.
     
  9. Lugnuts

    Lugnuts Well-Known Member

    Now maybe the Courant political writers could follow his lead and hire the local pols to tweet from prison.

    If quid pro quo payments are not doable, they could just pay for the tweets in ciggies and porn.
     
  10. HanSenSE

    HanSenSE Well-Known Member

    This like may have been crossed last year, when Bela Karoly (sp?) was NBC's studio analyst for gymnastics, and, coincidience of coincidence, his wife was coach of Team USA. I wondered if Brian Williams would be allowed to interview Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama each day about the campaign, the precedent having been set in Beijing.
     
  11. BYH

    BYH Active Member

    Re: The Hartford Courant has enough $$$ to pay Auriemma's kid to BLOG about his

    No arguing that, but that's a different topic. Irrelevancy of newspapers and all, it's still appallingly odious that a newspaper that is crying poverty as it slowly bleeds to death a once-great product would stoop to paying the daughter of the head coach to "clear up" things said about Daddy.

    Let the Scouts and Rivals and blogs of the world do that. The last thing the Courant should be doing these days, for multiple reasons, is pay an obviously biased and untrained writer to blog about Daddy's team.
     
  12. BYH

    BYH Active Member

    O RLY? How unique. Imagine if editors and publishers were so eager to pay people who actually possessed writing experience.
     
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