tricat wrote:Yahoo's headline for the Book story: "Former Arizona assistant coach said he paid $40K to high school coach to ensure player's academic eligibility"
The subheadline for Dana O'Neil's hit piece on The Athletic: "Former Arizona assistant coach Book Richardson paid a high school coach $40,000 to forge a transcript for Rawle Alkins, Yahoo reported."
Dropped the word "said" and treated the claim as fact, and then used that to hammer Sean, the school, and fans. That ain't journalism, folks, it's click-bait and mob mentality and I thought The Athletic was supposed to be above that kind of lazy writing. I also canceled my sub.
I feel like what you're saying is that something like a "sports journalism" website is, in fact, journalism - until it isn't anymore. It's clear why sports journalism tends toward entertainment at the expense of journalism's standards of editorial oversight and documentation. It's really just sports media. Even the best of them are always ready to trip and fall into a ditch.
I think we need to accept our place in the fictional world that sports media has placed us in. Arizona is the anti-Duke. Duke is the fake darling of college basketball, and Arizona is the fake villain of college basketball. The origin of Duke's position is what they did in the court a long time ago. The origin of Arizona's position is what ESPN alleged Miller did off the court, which followed upon what Book actually did do off the court. It sounds like a delusion of grandeur, but it's actually true: Arizona is sport's media's college basketball villain, and sports writers aren't going to change their minds about that.