Coaches wife confronts columnist in press box

Collen Canzano ... has a nice ring to it. And they'd get what they deserve -- each other.

 

If the (ex)wife of the coach and the mother of a player comes into the press box, screams profanities at a columnist and grabs him by the shirt, that's not just the typical loud feedback from a reader. That's news, in my opinion. Not headline news, but if I'd been a writer from another paper in that press box, I probably would have included a brief account of it somewhere in my coverage. The setting of the incident, the vehemence of the attack and the identity of the person who did it all combine to make it something worth telling readers about.

That said, I hope Canzano's motivation wasn't to retaliate against Colleen Bellotti or to deter readers from venting their anger at reporters in the future. If so, then he is mis-using his platform. But if he's telling his readers, "Hey, this happened to me. You'll be interested in this," then fine, I have no problem with that, not on a blog. Whoever suggested that maybe newspapers shouldn't have blogs because the standards are a little looser than with more traditional forms of journalism may have a point. But as long as they have them, this is perfectly reasonable material.

 

Make that Colleen Canzano. Leaving out a letter could be hazardous to my health.

And Frank Ridgeway is right. This all started because no one had the stones to tell Superstar the lede to his column sucked. The guy's talented, yes, but geez, everybody misses now and then and the paper has to able to tell Superstar when he has missed and save him from himself. They didn't, and now this has turned into an Instant Catfight Classic.

 

So if he had done a well-written column publicizing the fact that her son got two DUIs and his suspension was kept a secret, she would've discussed this with him in a cordial manner? Please! Let's not start blaming the original column for her behavior (can we actually hold non-journalists accountable for their actions for once?). Whatever hell her family was put through wasn't because of the quality of the column, but rather what the column revealed. Yes, the lede to the column was weak and should've been redone, but the meat of the column was fine.

 

The lede sucked, but I don't think that was the reason Colleen went batshit.

 

She went batshit because she didn't like the column. That is her right. (If she did put her hands on him, that's too much. It certainly isn't the end of the world, though. I can't imagine he felt for his safety.) But I go back to the idea of humanity. You have to expect people will react when you write stuff that they don't like. That's just human behavior. It isn't newsworthy. The site of the confrontation does not make it newsworthy -- that's just an i'm-a-fucking-journalist crutch.

 

The site of the confrontation certainly does matter. She chose to do this not just publicly, but in front of a group of reporters. How could she possibly expect it not to be reported in some fashion? There are any number of ways she could have shown her displeasure over the column that would not have been newsworthy. This was not one of them.

 

So who else reported it before it was written by the almighty aggrieved blogger?

 

CatchMeUp, I'm curious what you would have done in a similar situation, especially if it was someone who has accosted you rather rudely before? I wish I could sit here and say I'd practice restraint, but I doubt I would.

I'm not excusing Canzano for any perceived miscues, but realize that this was not an off-the-cuff piece -- notice the details in the blog. It's clear he wrote it after the game, meaning at least a couple hours had passed by between the confrontation and the publishing of the piece.

 

Yes, yes, yes, exactly. It felt like Lupica's I'll-get-the-last-word columns.

 

Wicked, I think you just have to let her yell and then move on. Who are you trying to impress at that point? Because she yelled at you in front of your boys in the press box, you have to slam her in the blog to make yourself look good for them? I don't get it. The guy is the big voice in that market -- how could he be so insecure? Have we really gotten to the point in this business where you're considered a pussy because you walked away from a confrontation with somebody's wife?

 

Incidentally, I still haven't seen his follow-up to all this, either in column or blog.