Urban Meyer hates reporters.

I also think that this is an inevitable result of the increasingly restricted access reporters get to coaches and players.

If all you get is a player or two a week spouting cliches for 2 minutes and you get one to say something the slightest bit juicy, you are going to run with it rather than ask Joe Jockstrap to clarify and water it down for you.

 

Fowler should have asked Meyer to comment on the rumors his "resignation" stemmed from an affair with an undergrad.

 

Not that anybody will ever listen to me, or the public will ever change it's opinion, or this line will stop being uttered, but:

SINGLE PARAGRAPHS, ITEMS AND STORIES DO NOT SELL NEWSPAPERS.

The only time you can make that case is if you have a huge story across the top of 1A. Only then. Ever.

Nobody in the history of newspaper buying has ever read a salacious or interesting item in a newspaper and immediately said, "That's a hell of a thing. Where's the phone so I can get a subscription?"

A person might walk past a news rack and see a huge story jumping out at him and buy the paper. Only then.

Not only was this never really true -- it's by far less true now. Because I heard about this story and immediately, just like thousands of others, went to the website to read it. No papers sold.

Finally, writers generally do not write or report things to "sell papers." It's simply not on their minds. Perhaps they hope a body of work will convince somebody to buy the paper to read them. But it's not something any of them think about very often. And in my experience, we don't edit that way, either.

Writers, correct me if I'm wrong.

I wouldn't have mentioned this if this were simply a throwaway reference, but not only is this not true here, but it's a line used constantly -- and mostly by Republican/conservative leaders and media pundits, although this is not a political discussion -- to bash the reporting of the Mainstream Media. And because many people are sheep, they believe it.

Carry on.

 

As noted earlier - perhaps by Milehigh - IO should have said web hits.
When I saw the stoy ion Yahoo, Deadspin and Rivals.. I was the quote. Or the teaser about a WR throwing Tebow under the bus.
Regardless of the semantics- it was sensationalized to attract attention.

 

Sensationalized by being put in the seventh paragraph, and not the focus of the headline. OK.

 

The only thing I hate worse than being misquoted is being quoted accurately.

 

Yeah, I'm not getting it, either.

Bottom line: Jeremy Fowler did his job, and Urban Meyer overreacted, although from the other side of things, he'll be applauded for "protecting his players."

One of our columnists made a good point this week. How come when big-time players from big-time programs are winning and successful and everything's OK, they're men, and warriors and the man, or whatever -- and when they lose and/or getting written about negatively (ripped, if you must), they're "just college kids"?

 

College kids "who have never done anything wrong!"

As if coaches give reporters license to rip every kid who has been in trouble.

 

I do think Urban was out of line for saying "we'd be going at it" and all that stuff. He definitely should have handled this in private.

That said, I agree with his outrage. The reporter pounced on a slip of the tongue, highlighted the quote in his original story and editorialized it as a rip job without asking Deonte if that was what he really meant. Then when he realized the damage he caused, he changed his words to pretend like it never happened.

That's some great beat reporting right there /bluefont

 

What damage did he cause?

 

"Thompson was embarrassed by the remark and the attention it got, mostly because he likes Tebow and never wanted to say anything negative about him."

Look, I realize he's no casualty of war here, but the guy was ripped to shreds on national TV and radio and made to look like a total clown.

And there are ways to write interesting blog posts without having to jump all over a player's slip of the tongue. With, you know, real reporting.

 

Also, this:

When Fowler initially tweeted about Thompson’s quotes, he only mentioned the “real quarterback” part, and that quickly was picked up by message boards. An hour later, as the story quickly gained momentum online, Fowler tried to soften the blow with this tweet: “In fairness to Thompson, he either meant Brantley is simply more of a traditional-style QB or he wanted to slight Tebow.”

Fowler pounced on a quote, then tried to backtrack. Weak.