Posts Tagged ‘Charlie Weis’

Be Careful Student Sports Reporters, Your School May Have an In-Game Tweet Limit

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on November 13, 2012 | 4 Comments »

Journalists are currently abuzz about the University of Washington men’s basketball team– not for its play but for how it’s allowed to be covered.

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Athletics officials at the school recently told a local sports reporter to stop live-tweeting so much during an early season game.  The weird warning revealed a new official rule instituted for all live coverage of UW games by outside press– 20 tweets tops at basketball games and no more than 45 tweets during football games.

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Hmm.  The restriction, known formally as a “live coverage policy,” is apparently similar to those being enacted or considered by other sports programs at colleges and universities nationwide.  On spec, it seems to be an attempt to have more netizens check out the school’s own live online coverage.

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It is also undoubtedly a larger push to control as much of the in-the-moment media coverage of its teams as possible, in exchange for reporter access to the fun and games.  As former sports reporter Brian Moritz confirms, “Yes, every reporter who gets a press credential signs a release that includes the rules. No, none of them ever read it. Seriously, when’s the last time you read the terms and conditions when you update iTunes?”

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It is the latest sports reporting body blow at the college level brought to light this semester, including increasing limits on reporting on team practices and student-athlete injuries.  Heck, University of Kansas head football coach Charlie Weis does not believe the KU student newspaper should provide any negative coverage of his dismal gridiron squad at all.

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So, big question of the day: Does your school have a social media policy for live sports coverage?  And bigger question: What other limits, if any, do sports reporters at your news outlet face, especially when covering your school’s A-list players and teams?

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Kansan Football Reporter Warned About Asking Questions at Press Conference with Head Coach

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 11, 2012 | 1 Comment »

University Daily Kansan sports writer Blake Schuster says athletics officials at the University of Kansas warned him in a private meeting about asking questions at the most recent press conference with head football coach Charlie Weis.  The reason?  Their concerns about “lingering ill-will among members of the football program.”

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As I previously posted, Weis ranted on Twitter last Friday about what he felt was unfairly harsh coverage in the Kansan about the football team’s many woes so far this season.  He particularly took issue with preview coverage of the squad’s game this past weekend against in-state rival Kansas State University.  The full-page cover graphic kicking off the coverage displayed a tiny, fearful Jayhawk hugging a goalpost, while a large, muscular KSU Wildcat races fearlessly toward the end zone.  The accompanying story’s headline, “Road Kill Ahead.”

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According to the Kansan, KU football communications director Katy Lonergan “warned Schuster about possible negative reactions to . . . [the] cover art and story.  She told him these negative attitudes could be directed toward him. . . . [Schuster] said Lonergan told him it would be in his best interest not to ask questions.”

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Lonergan countered, “I just simply advised him that if he did ask questions, he should be prepared for any kind of tone in his answer.”  As the reliably snarky sports blog Deadspin explained, “It wasn’t a threat, see. Just a gentle suggestion.”

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On a larger scale, in a piece earlier this week, Kansan student columnist Mike Vernon speaks for many with a terrifically impassioned editorial smackdown of this KU-triggered mess– one that started as an overly sensitive, tone-deaf Twitter temper-tantrum but now hovers precariously close to full-blown censorship.

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As Vernon writes, “The path that Kansas Athletics has taken to handle this situation is not right.  Kansas is a public university, and it has a damn good journalism school that is here teaching its students to be objective members of the Fourth Estate of the United States of America, to hold its leaders accountable, and to be a free and independent press. It’s a democracy thing, and it’s too bad a public American university would try to persuade student reporters into compromising those values.”

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Bottom line, writes Vernon, “[T]he Kansan isn’t here to rally up student support for the football team. . . . Students at this university deserve better than a pom-pom squad of a newspaper.  They deserve to get the truth.”

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Weis, by the way, has not tweeted since Roadkill-gate began.

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Related

Kansas Football Coach Tweets Angrily About Daily Kansan Coverage of Team

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Kansas Football Coach Tweets Angrily About Daily Kansan Coverage of Team

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 7, 2012 | 4 Comments »

Update: Kansan Football Reporter Warned About Asking Questions at Press Conference with Head Coach

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Charlie Weis was wicked mad late last week.  The head coach of the University of Kansas football team lashed out at The University Daily Kansan in a 140-character burst of righteous anger.  The tweet spurred national attention and a public scolding from some members of the press.

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Since the start of the season, the Kansan, KU’s student newspaper, has aggressively– and accurately– covered the many woes of the one-win Jayhawks football squad.  In an issue published Friday, editors provided preview coverage of a conference road game between KU and its in-state rival, the Kansas State University Wildcats.

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The full-page cover graphic accompanying the main story in the issue displays a tiny, fearful Jayhawk hugging a goalpost, while a large, muscular Wildcat races fearlessly toward the end zone.  The story’s headline, “Road Kill Ahead.”

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Weis apparently did not care for the graphic, headline or related coverage.  In a tweet posted early Friday morning to his personal Twitter account @CoachWeisKansas, he shared, “Team slammed by our own school newspaper.  Amazing!  No problem with opponents paper or local media.  You deserve what you get!  But, not home!”

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The micro-response earned hundreds of retweets.  It also revealed how little Weis knows about student journalism.

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Oh, Charlie.  What you must understand: Student newspapers are not campus cheerleaders.  They are, at heart, objective observers.  By that standard, Weis and the football team have deserved all the editorial shellacking they have received.

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The team is having a terrible season.  The Kansan has been correct in its coverage of that relative terribleness.  Staffers were also correct in their prediction of a tough outing against the Wildcats.  On Saturday, KSU defeated KU 56-16.

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As CBS Sports blogger Jerry Hinnen explains, “[I]t’s not the Kansan‘s role to be kind– it’s to put out the most accurate, highest-quality paper it can, and there’s no denying that picture is an entirely accurate summation of the two programs’ current standing. . . . If Weis really wants better treatment from the student newspaper, we have a simple suggestion: Don’t lose to Rice and Northern Illinois.”

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USA TODAY sports writer Paul Myerberg agrees, noting, “The University Daily Kansan has won two consecutive College Newspaper of the Year awards (circulation over 30,000 division) from the College Newspaper Business & Advertising Managers.  Keep up the good work– the newspaper, that is.  Weis needs to win more games.”

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For his part, Weis quickly posted a less simmering– but still self-righteous– follow-up tweet.  It offers a partial explanation for his anger.  As he wrote, “I personally could care less.  You are what [you] are.  On the other hand, if I don’t support the players good or bad, who will??”

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Related

Stony Brook Student Magazine’s Funny Football Tweets Lead to Censorship Threat

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