The coach vs. the columnist

There’s plenty to fault on both sides of the war of words between Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy and a newspaper columnist.

For background, here’s the column in question written by Jenni Carlson of The Daily Oklahoman, about an OSU football player http://newsok.com/article/3131543/1190442218 and Gundy's response to it in a post-game press conference last weekend:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VytIZZzee0

First, the column was certainly no Pulitzer Prize winner. I’m the faculty adviser for a small college newspaper and I would certainly sit down and have a talk with any student reporter who turned in a piece like this. It’s poorly sourced -- I’m always uncomfortable with phrases like “rumors and rumblings” and unattributed “backstories.” That’s questionable journalism that just gives aid and comfort to knee-jerk media haters, who have been out in force on this one.

But poor reporting is no excuse for the coach’s screaming fit, which detracted from his team's victory and the fine performance of the quarterback who DID play, and made the coach the focus of attention. I don’t care what the circumstances are, wild-eyed gesticulating and yelling in a public forum is not a good look for someone who wants to be taken seriously as a professional person.

I am uncomfortable with some of the personal criticism, bordering on amateur psychoanalysis, of the player. (What did she mean by his mother “feeding him chicken,” anyway?) But I’ve seen and heard much worse abuse of a college player from fans on message boards and on talk radio. Maybe it’s just a problem when the so-called MSM do it.

But the reasons why a coach in a major college football program chose to play or not play a particular player -- especially one as high-profile as the quarterback -- are legitimate subjects for media coverage. And as poorly executed as it might have been, the piece appears to be based on facts the reporter has gathered and on her own observation, which is appropriate and even desirable in a column.

If those facts aren’t really facts, most newspapers want to know that and are willing to correct inaccuracies. You can’t do that if the source, who has told you that 75 percent of your story is wrong, won’t be specific about what’s wrong. (In my experience in both journalism and public relations, that translates into, “I really can’t dispute your facts but I hate what you wrote and I REALLY hate that you wrote about it at all.”) The coach is wrong – if he’s going to be credible, and if he's going to question the reporter's credibility, he does have to address the inaccuracies.

Criticism of a player is always a touchy issue. I've always believed that criticism should avoid the personal -- unless the circumstances make it impossible to ignore -- and focus on the player's performance. I also think the standards to which players should be held depend on the level of play. I’ve never criticized the play of an individual high school player – although I have reported when that player’s mistake may have determined the outcome of the game. Professional athletes, who earn thousands of the fans’ hard-earned dollars each time they step on the field or the court, should be held to the highest standards.

College athletes are somewhere in between, depending on the sport and on the level of “amateurism” in the program. At Oklahoma State’s level of play, a fair number of these players are using their "student-athlete" status and their scholarship primarily to train for a professional career. (If the young quarterback thinks THIS media attention was aggressive and over-the-top, I hope he never ends up playing for the New York Giants/Jets or Chicago Bears.)

I’ve been amused at the comments of the coach and his defenders that want to portray these men, some of whom are actual adults of legal age, as fresh-faced young “kids” unschooled in the ways of the world and just playing for the glory of their university and an afternoon of vigorous exercise. They don't deserve any criticism, they say.

Please. Big-time college football is a multi-million dollar enterprise which depends in part for its success on the exposure and publicity provided by the news media. Sometimes the news is good and sometimes it’s bad – sort of like the real world. And it’s the news media’s job to find out what happened and tell that story – whatever it is – to the public. Yes, it doesn’t always get told well.

But in this case, the attitude of the coach reminds me of playwright Noel Coward's famous comment about critics: “I like criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise.”

The tasering of free speech?

The story from Gainesville, Fla., this week was too good for me to let pass without some comment.

A student at the University of Florida (one of my alma maters) was tasered at a lecture by Senator and former Presidential candidate John Kerry. He ignored requests that he give up the microphone during the question-and-answer session following the speech, and resisted campus security efforts to escort him out of the lecture hall.

In the aftermath, Andrew Meyer, who has written articles for the Independent Florida Alligator student newspaper, has become an instant YouTube star and a subject for debate – “Free Speech Hero or Immature Jerk?”

I’m leaning toward the latter, with reservations. One, I don’t believe anyone should be tasered unless they’re proving to be an immediate and violent threat to the public safety – a situation that clearly didn’t exist here. And two, as a former journalism student who came of age in the era of the “Question Authority!” bumper sticker, I have no problem with anyone posing difficult, even impertinent, questions to public officials.

But I’d offer a couple of pieces of advice to Meyer if I had the opportunity, as he obviously has a couple of things to learn about the way the world works if he really wants to be a journalist.

Lesson #1: You are not the story, no matter how much you might want to be. Judging from his e-mail address (famouswriterman@aol.com), the content of his website and his self-admitted penchant for confrontation, Meyer appears to love the sound of his own voice above almost anything else. He certainly wouldn’t be the first person with a massive ego to ever become a journalist, but he might try doing some actual reporting to try to make a name for himself.

Lesson #2: You’re not always going to own the microphone. It’s been a blessing and a curse that YouTube, blogs and personal websites have democratized the means of production in the communications field, giving anyone who has an opinion the opportunity to find an immediate platform for it. No waiting, no pesky editorial filter.

For years cultural critics have skewered our “instant gratification” society for its overindulgence in everything from sexual pleasure to rampant consumerism. Now we can have instant gratification of our egos as the self-publishers of our every thought about everything. That’s fine when the microphone belongs to us.

However, in a public forum such as the Kerry speech, someone else makes the rules and has the right to do so to keep order and guarantee fair access to speech to everyone who wants the opportunity. (I’ve always liked President Reagan’s felicitous phrase, “I’m paying for this microphone,” objecting to his mike being cut off during a presidential candidates’ debate which his campaign helped to fund in New Hampshire in 1980.)

According to accounts of the part of the incident that wasn’t captured on video, Meyer the aspiring journalist engaged in behavior that wouldn’t be tolerated in any respectable news conference. He broke in line in front of other students. He exceeded his allotted time with “questions” that appeared to be mostly editorial comments (a major irritant for me in any public forum). Obviously not a person who’s used to the concept of “you’re finished talking now,” Meyer made a poor choice in not going away quietly. He chose instead to resist, escalating the situation.

So does that mean that every obnoxious, vocal person who believes the rules don’t apply to them should be tasered? I’m leaning toward “no,” but in the words of Jack Benny, “I’m thinking it over.”