"Journalists" under fire...

[Husker_Du]

49 minutes ago, MPhillips said:

No you did not. You're correct. You, "poo, pooed" it.  It was all Basch.

You STFU, sighed, feigned disinterest and waited on Basch.

are you sure you know who is who?

i talked 3x's more on the subject than basch did.

[bnwtwg]

32 minutes ago, Husker_Du said:

are you sure you know who is who?

i talked 3x's more on the subject than basch did.

To be fair to your co-host, Basch's mouth was full of his second helping of nothingburger

If you were a boxed meal we would call you Nothingburger Helper

[flyingcement]

I dont have a strong view about what the media was doing or should have been doing.  

But it does seem odd that this story has not been picked up by any other paper in the country that I can find.  Someone mentioned ESPN was looking into this at one point.  I haven't seen anything anywhere else.  Very strange to hear one side of a quite extreme story - to hear nothing in response from the alleged person or the school. 

Ideally, if the media does have either the connections to the school - or the spare time to sniff around and ask questions - then it would help push a resolution forward in some way.  Maybe that is happening behind the scenes and we haven't seen the output yet.

 

[Doublehalf]

1 hour ago, Husker_Du said:

are you sure you know who is who?

i talked 3x's more on the subject than basch did.

I think there are a couple things that are bothersome out of the gate with how this has been handled by yourself and others from the start but since you are at least willing to discuss it, I respect the engagement.

The few observations I had from the beginning was the manner in which you spoke about it to begin with seemed to take the side of and I'm paraphrasing "this is a beau problem and he needs to shut up or put out a public account" (which he ultimately did in the article)

As wrestling personalities, you speculate on things all the time within the sport ie results/outcomes, transfers etc... This seemed to be something that struck some kind of nerve given your initial reaction vs giving an objective viewpoint. The bias was apparent from the start which is fine I suppose. 
 

The problem for some of us is that we know and are aware of your many connections within the wrestling community, teams and sources close to the matter and it would seem pretty easy for you to make a couple calls to hear what others would have to say or corroborate Beau's report. There clearly are others that also came forward anonymously as well so this isn't just about Beau. He even stated the sides are not himself and Penn state. 
 

I think there was a way to talk about this and report on everything that was said in the article and have a discussion around its merits, and potentially consequences for all should it be true (which you could get a sense of from your sources.)

a couple things are possible:

1. This is incendiary as all hell and you don't want any part in talking about it which is fine, maybe just explicitly state you feel personally uncomfortable talking about (your initial characterization of Beau felt like you were overly dismissive of him vs taking a middle of the road stance)

2. You know there could be consequences in talking about this in the vein of falling out of favor with your sources and connections and chose to preserve those over speaking about this publicly.

3. Maybe you did call and no one talked to your or advised you to be careful and not to draw attention to it so that people wouldn't be viewed in a bad light. One thing is certain though and that ship sailed as soon as the article came out. 

I just think if this were a different topic you would have gone all in at getting information but because it could be damaging you took the hands off approach which hasn't seemed to be your style on most other things. You could have called the guy that wrote the article for more context as well. speaking about the situation and its potential ramifications is not irresponsible and frankly what the biggest news is in the sport right now. One thing is certain, if you chose to talk more about this, you'd get a lot more clicks, eyes and ears on your content because that's what people want to hear about right now right wrong or indifferent.

Edited Wednesday at 12:11 AM by Doublehalf

[Wrestleknownothing]

3 hours ago, Husker_Du said:

no. pick a lane.

b/c right now you're talking out both sides of your mouth.

is it that we didn't talk about it? or is it what we said?

I'm not talking out of any side. All I did was differentiate between a content creator and media that buys the rights to broadcast major sports. 

[billyhoyle]

1 hour ago, Husker_Du said:

you're not good at logic, and have no idea what 'journalism' is.

it matters ZERO what i think. it only matters what has been PROVEN.

at this point in time, nothing has.

i will speak with more certainty when it has. 

i'm not sure if you're aware but half the major wrestling media personalities are literally in a lawsuit right now.

 

[wrestle87]

41 minutes ago, Doublehalf said:

I think there are a couple things that are bothersome out of the gate with how this has been handled by yourself and others from the start but since you are at least willing to discuss it, I respect the engagement.

The few observations I had from the beginning was the manner in which you spoke about it to begin with seemed to take the side of and I'm paraphrasing "this is a beau problem and he needs to shut up or put out a public account" (which he ultimately did in the article)

As wrestling personalities, you speculate on things all the time within the sport ie results/outcomes, transfers etc... This seemed to be something that struck some kind of nerve given your initial reaction vs giving an objective viewpoint. The bias was apparent from the start which is fine I suppose. 
 

The problem for some of us is that we know and are aware of your many connections within the wrestling community, teams and sources close to the matter and it would seem pretty easy for you to make a couple calls to hear what others would have to say or corroborate Beau's report. There clearly are others that also came forward anonymously as well so this isn't just about Beau. He even stated the sides are not himself and Penn state. 
 

I think there was a way to talk about this and report on everything that was said in the article and have a discussion around its merits, and potentially consequences for all should it be true (which you could get a sense of from your sources.)

a couple things are possible:

1. This is incendiary as all hell and you don't want any part in talking about it which is fine, maybe just explicitly state you feel personally uncomfortable talking about (your initial characterization of Beau felt like you were overly dismissive of him vs taking a middle of the road stance)

2. You know there could be consequences in talking about this in the vein of falling out of favor with your sources and connections and chose to preserve those over speaking about this publicly.

3. Maybe you did call and no one talked to your or advised you to be careful and not to draw attention to it so that people wouldn't be viewed in a bad light. One thing is certain though and that ship sailed as soon as the article came out. 

I just think if this were a different topic you would have gone all in at getting information but because it could be damaging you took the hands off approach which hasn't seemed to be your style on most other things. You could have called the guy that wrote the article for more context as well. speaking about the situation and its potential ramifications is not irresponsible and frankly what the biggest news is in the sport right now. One thing is certain, if you chose to talk more about this, you'd get a lot more clicks, eyes and ears on your content because that's what people want to hear about right now right wrong or indifferent.

100% this.

We have seen how forward and opinionated all wrestling “journalists” are willing to be at times, and how they will, under certain circumstances, absolute hold underperforming teams and individuals accountable.

Silence here on both this and Snyder is just so striking and out of character.

There aren’t really any charitable options left for how we can look at previous (rightfully) aggressive, opinionated pieces, and then hear nothing but crickets here.

All that remains is the “hmmm…did you guys get scared or bought off, or both?”

This is a fat juicy journalistic t-bone steak and nobody in the wrestling community wants to report on it.

Quite the disappointing head scratcher.

[Wrestleknownothing]

1 hour ago, The Kid said:

Why would Bartlett lie about this knowing it can be easily proved or disproved.   He saved thr screenshot and starrocci is gone from nlwc.

Why would _______ lie? Is the lamest form of argument. 

[Wrestleknownothing]

1 minute ago, wrestle87 said:

100% this.

We have seen how forward and opinionated all wrestling “journalists” are willing to be at times, and how they will, under certain circumstances, absolute hold underperforming teams and individuals accountable.

Silence here on both this and Snyder is just so striking and out of character.

There aren’t really any charitable options left for how we can look at previous (rightfully) aggressive, opinionated pieces, and then hear nothing but crickets here.

All that remains is the “hmmm…did you guys get scared or bought off, or both?”

This is a fat juicy journalistic t-bone steak and nobody in the wrestling community wants to report on it.

Quite the disappointing head scratcher.

These are content creators. A journalist would seek comment from all the parties. And if they did not receive comments they would say as much. 

[bnwtwg]

1 hour ago, flyingcement said:

Someone mentioned ESPN was looking into this at one point. 

That was me. I know a Big J journalist who was/is looking into it. Mentioned there was an ESPN reporter too but didn't say who or what type so I can't provide any more than that generic statement which I asked was okay to even say. No clue if anything came about or will come out since that's not my lane. The quote that stuck with me was "if there's smoke, there's fire. Penn State better be careful with their fires."

[Hammerlock3]

7 hours ago, Husker_Du said:

help me understand. you guys seem to be contradicting yourselves.

are we under fire for not talking about it? or are we under fire because we talked about it?

i don't know if this is a clarification or not, but rest assured you're supposed to be under fire. 

[The Kid]

Did anyone wrestling "journalist" reach out to Coach Cael?  

Why is cstar not involved with nlwc?

How's Davis doing?

Any word on Gilman?

Have you prayed with Kyle Snyder in your basement?

Are you aware of the Snapchat nude pictures taken by cstar of his teammates?

We heard their was rape allegations? Any word on that?

Was this fun you guys always talk about?

 

Or are we just fan boy "journalists"

[happyvalet]

14 hours ago, Husker_Du said:

the irony of you telling journalists what they should do why parroting fake news.

What journalists? Who are you claiming is a  journalist? Are you claiming to be one? You have a degree in journalism? You worked for a newspaper or news station as a reporter? 

Also the fake news he was parroting about Carter being gone from NLWC is from Mineo lol. I agree though that guy is fake news

Edited Wednesday at 11:17 AM by happyvalet

[happyvalet]

Question for @Husker_Du, had you and Basch heard rumors of these types of allegations prior to it becoming public?

Robbie Wendell who has no connection to PSU said he's heard talk of these things for the past 3 years. 

Beau came out publicly on the PSU forum and said (without specifying at first) that bad things happened to him and even worse things happened to some women. And then you came out and criticized Beau for how he handled it and Basch called it a nothingburger. Even at the time, I thought that was in poor taste. 

If indeed you had heard the same rumors that Robbie and others had heard and then saw Beau's post giving more credence to those things, and you two still responded the way you did, then it's that much worse. 

And then Christian Pyles saw all of that, waited three days after the article came out and said hold my beer and bashed the actual journalist for doing actual reporting because he can't comprehend doing anything except praising "the heroes of our sport" as he said. At the same time, he glossed over or ignored the actual allegations, and blamed Beau's wife and called her an attention seeker. 

[Dark Energy]

This is an incentives issue …. Like sooo many other issues.  
 

Media that focuses on wrestling, and who require access to key leaders, coaches, wrestlers to be able to create content that results in themselves getting paid, will do their damn best to avoid throttling their access to the key people.  Note, action that threatens access to NON-key people but would result in good clicks and revenue, that action is much more likely to occur.  Thus there is disparity in negative coverage at times.

 

What we are wishing for is that the sport would be big enough for there to be journalists that are more objective and more willing to probe, seek, and report without fear of reprisal that would damage their money making potential.  There would be a big enough market for info - driving revenue to these people.  
 

We are far far from that spot.  
 

I kinda feel for the media guys today — in a tough spot.  I do think they need to think harder about disparaging those bringing forth claims.  

[PortaJohn]

12 hours ago, Doublehalf said:

I just think if this were a different topic you would have gone all in at getting information but because it could be damaging you took the hands off approach which hasn't seemed to be your style on most other things. You could have called the guy that wrote the article for more context as well.

 

11 hours ago, wrestle87 said:

Silence here on both this and Snyder is just so striking and out of character.

As was just mentioned by Dark Energy we all know wrestling isn't a big media market.  It's incestuous.  Our "journalist" media personalities know these wrestlers and their families on a personal level.  I even notice the same dynamic in major media markets and how the local sportscaster in a major city approach an athlete's personal matter vs national media.  The dynamics are different and there would be more freedoms if an outside news source picked up the story  

[ionel]

1 hour ago, PortaJohn said:

 

As was just mentioned by Dark Energy we all know wrestling isn't a big media market.  It's incestuous.  Our "journalist" media personalities know these wrestlers and their families on a personal level.  I even notice the same dynamic in major media markets and how the local sportscaster in a major city approach an athlete's personal matter vs national media.  The dynamics are different and there would be more freedoms if an outside news source picked up the story  

Well sure but ... Journalists Under Fire ... if you write it I can see Kiss preforming it ... maybe add a little dark energy to the melody.    

[alex1fly]

Journalists go after the stories, often to a fault. The Flo guys are paid off, nervous, and/or unqualified for these Penn State screwups. Or their bosses are. This isn’t the normal content. 

[ionel]

What i thought i saw from just skimming this thread is that we don't need 'journalists' or at least we don't need so darn many.  It seems to be suggested that journalist can only write about something after the trial and the "facts" are all in and the jury has reached a verdict as to which facts we can believe.  

Now if we want to talk about things that are true that could be reported:

It's true that Beau said what he said about what happened.  We don't know that he actually reported all to Sanderson but a good journalist could ask Cael.

It's true his wife said what she said.

It's true two (or more) women made claims or at least a journalist could double check that and find out if they really were 17 and not suppose to have access.

It appears to be true security footage exists.  A journalist could investigate/ask who controls the tapes/hard drive, do the still exist, we're they deleted?

It appears no one from the university has made comment.  A journalist could investigate is this true and ask Cael, the AD, the president for comment if none why?  

I could go on.  There are plenty of true things and fact to investigate which could generate several articles.

[Gene Mills Fan]

15 minutes ago, ionel said:

What i thought i saw from just skimming this thread is that we don't need 'journalists' or at least we don't need so darn many.  It seems to be suggested that journalist can only write about something after the trial and the "facts" are all in and the jury has reached a verdict as to which facts we can believe.  

Now if we want to talk about things that are true that could be reported:

It's true that Beau said what he said about what happened.  We don't know that he actually reported all to Sanderson but a good journalist could ask Cael.

It's true his wife said what she said.

It's true two (or more) women made claims or at least a journalist could double check that and find out if they really were 17 and not suppose to have access.

It appears to be true security footage exists.  A journalist could investigate/ask who controls the tapes/hard drive, do the still exist, we're they deleted?

It appears no one from the university has made comment.  A journalist could investigate is this true and ask Cael, the AD, the president for comment if none why?  

I could go on.  There are plenty of true things and fact to investigate which could generate several articles.

WANTED: Investigative reporters;   to follow and act on sporting news leads, please apply in person, no snap chat photos req'd. 

[PortaJohn]

1 hour ago, ionel said:

 

I could go on.  There are plenty of true things and fact to investigate which could generate several articles.

I doubt there is money in chasing a story and generating several articles for a niche sport.  ESPN may haven looked into it and walked away chasing the dollar somewhere else

Edited Wednesday at 03:52 PM by PortaJohn

[Bigbrog]

[ionel]

1 hour ago, PortaJohn said:

I doubt there is money in chasing a story and generating several articles for a niche sport.  ESPN may haven looked into it and walked away chasing the dollar somewhere else

Sure but who'd a thunk you could make money off pop up ads to old washed up wrestler posters, know nothing, pastries and wantabe pastries?   

[Hammerlock3]

The core issue is that what we are calling journalists are really people who are self promoting and therefore trying to win every popularity contest. So we either have that, or Mineo who is functioning as a journalist in the sense that he screams every stupid rumor he can find, but has no actual commitment to the truth. 

So we have people who can't handle negative attention and people who act like attention is zero/sum, when we need someone who doesn't care about attention at all and just deals with truth. 

[Husker_Du]

2 hours ago, ionel said:

 It seems to be suggested that journalist can only write about something after the trial and the "facts" are all in and the jury has reached a verdict as to which facts we can believe.  

.

that's not what anyone said, and a distinction that everyone seems to be glossing over.

you can write about it, you can talk about it,

but you can't position the allegations as facts. you can't condemn or indict based on allegations, no matter how true you think the allegations are. that's just sloppy and irresponsible. 

i ain't doing it, that's for sure, and you can all hate away on me or call me whatever you want.