Flo Leaks Blaze to PSU Ahead of Announcement

[Wrestleknownothing]

8 minutes ago, steamboat_charlie said:

Can someone fill me in on why you can't report on a recruit's commitment prior to their official signing?  

Are we assuming they were told this information off the record, with the understanding that they wouldn't release any info until after Blaze made his own announcement?  If that's the case I understand, but otherwise I don't see a problem with it.  

They said they did not get the info from the Blaze family.

Typically why a news organization cares is that they are repeat players. If they are seen to be dishonest, or sloppy, they risk future access to information. It is reputational.

[1032004]

23 hours ago, Gus said:

Christian is not near as bad as some of these guys make him out to be. Not my favorite, but certainly not the worst. 

Agree.  Martin really has it out for him now apparently 

 

 

[fishbane]

1 hour ago, 1032004 said:

I don’t feel that they said the criticism was “more damaging.”  IMO they acknowledged that it was ultimately their fault.  Just stating a fact that that’s how more people became aware of it. 

They didn't say more damaging, but Pyles first describes the reach of their original article as small (it was up 10 only minutes/100-200 page views) before going into his white knight rant where he credited the twitter white knights with amplifying it to 100,000 people.  By my math that is 50-100x the number of people Flo directly informed.  Their mistake was small before the twitter white knights 100xed it was the message I got.

Quote

The people that want to white knight about our mistake, they're more exited that Flo made a mistake and amplifying that.  Meanwhile the whole point that "they're up in arms about" is that we ruined Marcus's moment. Well a couple hundred people saw it and now 100,000 people see it because you guys want to have a white knight twitter moment and that is what is so annoying.  It's like wait y'all don't actually care... you don't... let's just call it what it is.  You don't care about Marcus's moment you care about any opportunity you get and I've seen it for years and years and years. Any opportunity some of these... and it's a small number of people get to hang Flo out to dry you're going to do that over anything.  So even if it means further revealing Marcus's intent where it would have been a couple hundred people and maybe the screenshot gets texted around. Social media and that's the nature of the business, right?  I'm not.. um... I'm not at all surprised that it happened, because I've seen it happen, but I just... all the white knights on Twitter that are up in arms, that tweeted and tweeted and tweeted about it made it such... such a loud moment about how we messed up, just also admit that it was more important for you dunk on Flo than to preserve Marcus's moment. So that is also true.

The bold parts are where I think he was shifting blame.  I am sure Pyles is not annoyed when Flo puts out news intentionally and wrestling fans amplify it to 100,000 people on social media.  He can't really be upset at wrestling fans when they amplify big recruiting news Flo put out unintentionally.  He might as well be upset at the internet and social media for existing.  He's in the news business and people talking about the news they produce is kind of the point.  When they mess up criticism will be part of that discussion.  

[fishbane]

22 minutes ago, steamboat_charlie said:

Can someone fill me in on why you can't report on a recruit's commitment prior to their official signing?  

I don't get it either.  Flo could just write the article about how Blaze has scheduled the press conference for 11/12 where  Flowrestling sources expect Blaze to announce his commitment to the PSU Nittany Lions.  Probably happens across many sports for many announcements.  New outlet states the press conference date/time and in the same article also discusses what some unnamed insider source has told them to expect.

26 minutes ago, steamboat_charlie said:

Are we assuming they were told this information off the record, with the understanding that they wouldn't release any info until after Blaze made his own announcement?  If that's the case I understand, but otherwise I don't see a problem with it.  

I think that is what happened and the real mistake was Blaze telling a news outlet something they didn't want known publicly.  Flowrestling didn't need to know his decision ahead of the public.  How does it even help Flo if all they are going to do with the information is try and not leak it before the announcement?  

[steamboat_charlie]

18 minutes ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

They said they did not get the info from the Blaze family.

Typically why a news organization cares is that they are repeat players. If they are seen to be dishonest, or sloppy, they risk future access to information. It is reputational.

Isn't that just called "reporting?"

If the only source you're willing to use is the direct party that's being reported on, you're adding zero value.  I understand the reputational risk with the athlete, but it comes with the territory.  

[BAC]

Dang, that's a lot of drama over a small error.

I feel for Kozak who seems like a legitimately good dude. His instinct was right -- apologize, don't argue with the haters, move on.

Pyles should have done the same -- just stop at the apology, and the whole thing would be immediately forgotten. Yes, he is right that the people highlighting the error don't really give a crap about the Blazes, or they wouldn't do it.  But it comes across as blame-shifting, begs the question:  why do so many people want to "dunk on Flo" in the first place?  Just rise above it, and it exposes the haters as small.

[flyingcement]

1 minute ago, BAC said:

Dang, that's a lot of drama over a small error.

I feel for Kozak who seems like a legitimately good dude. His instinct was right -- apologize, don't argue with the haters, move on.

Pyles should have done the same -- just stop at the apology, and the whole thing would be immediately forgotten. Yes, he is right that the people highlighting the error don't really give a crap about the Blazes, or they wouldn't do it.  But it comes across as blame-shifting, begs the question:  why do so many people want to "dunk on Flo" in the first place?  Just rise above it, and it exposes the haters as small.

I boldfaced the part that I was feeling.  Everyone makes mistakes.  Obviously this wasn't calculated.  It's a good thing to give grace to others if you ever expect grace in return.  

[BAC]

31 minutes ago, flyingcement said:

I boldfaced the part that I was feeling.  Everyone makes mistakes.  Obviously this wasn't calculated.  It's a good thing to give grace to others if you ever expect grace in return.  

Yup.  A mistake anyone could make.  The sport needs more people like Kozak.

[Bulldog]

38 minutes ago, BAC said:

Yup.  A mistake anyone could make.  The sport needs more people like Kozak.

^^^This^^^

[dragit]

6 hours ago, steamboat_charlie said:

Isn't that just called "reporting?"

If the only source you're willing to use is the direct party that's being reported on, you're adding zero value.  I understand the reputational risk with the athlete, but it comes with the territory.  

Thank you.  This is quite a strange situation.  There is zero evidence that Flo passed along something given to them on the condition that it was off the record.  Instead they specifically said they didn't get it from the principles. Yet it is being labeled by them and the vast majority of posters as a "mistake" to have reported news that was of interest to wrestling fans.  The criticism one would expect would be for trying to restrict news, not for disseminating news.  

[Husker_Du]

i certainly have my reservations about some things related to Flo,

but this is nothing more than an honest mistake. 

[1032004]

13 hours ago, steamboat_charlie said:

Can someone fill me in on why you can't report on a recruit's commitment prior to their official signing?  

Are we assuming they were told this information off the record, with the understanding that they wouldn't release any info until after Blaze made his own announcement?  If that's the case I understand, but otherwise I don't see a problem with it.  

IMO there is a bit of an “unwritten rule” for Flo to let athletes be the ones to announce their commitments, although I’m not sure how often they are told directly by the athlete or just hear it through other sources.

So for commitments I see no issue with Flo not reporting what they hear.  I do think they could/should report more on what they hear on other topics though, provided it’s not told to them by someone who specifically says don’t report it.  I can’t think of a specific example off the top of my head but I know there have been multiple times where they clearly know something and hint at it, but won’t just come out and say it.