Thursday, October 22, 2009
Errors in context can relay a message that is perceived as a criticism or assumption to parties who don’t deserve either.
I’m referring to Wednesday’s column in The University Daily Kansan by Clark Goble entitled “Student reporters kept at a distance.”
It was an interesting piece. Goble, a football writer for The Kansan, set the scene by describing being pushed aside by a television reporter while recording football coach Mark Mangino’s postgame remarks.
This then inspires a story from Montana in which the University of Montana’s football coach Bobby Hauck continues to refuse giving interviews to reporters from the school paper, The Kaimin.
Beginning when the paper had reported a story about an alleged assault about a month ago, its reporters have been denied comment from the coach and players. Rather than address any factual errors or specific problems with The Kaimin’s report, Hauck took to belittling the reporters publicly when they dared to do their jobs.
Hauck’s handling of the situation is childish and bears mentioning.
Student journalists are finding themselves in the same realm and discussion as their professional peers, especially with the proliferation of Web media. When the football and basketball teams engaged in their September brawls, The Kansan’s coverage was linked on national sports aggregator RealClearSports.com.
And it is that series of incidents that partly necessitates today’s column. As this paper’s sports editor, I feel compelled to address how the final sentence of Wednesday’s column remained intact. The first step of the editorial process at The Kansan is for the section editors to review his or her content, make necessary changes and pass along comments to the copy desk — where further edits are made.
When I came across the sentence “Hopefully Mangino never crosses that line” in reference to Hauck’s shutting out his college’s student press, I felt it presumptive and unfit for publication. I recommended that the column’s copy editor pass along a comment to Goble recommending he make Kansas’ coaches and their handling of last month’s fight fallout the center of the column, using the Montana coach as context.
Goble didn’t receive that message, and no such changes were made. This column is not being written to place any blame on Goble as his intentions were not to create a stir but merely to state that he hopes Kansas’ coaches never resort to Hauck’s methods of handling situations.
Mangino and basketball coach Bill Self deserve praise for being honest and direct, and for not limiting what can be asked to players in the aftermath of those fights. Most importantly, neither coach has ever treated The Kansan — which falls under the umbrella of media outlets both have described as “making the story bigger than it was” — the same shameful way Hauck treats his.
— — Edited by Anna Kathagnarath
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Comments
Montemayor: Remark on Mangino unfit to print
The Montana situation sounds kind of like Obama and Fox News.
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